New Research Argues It's 'Extraordinarily Clear' The Pandemic Started at the Wuhan Market (nytimes.com) 245
The New York times reports that two extensive new studies released today "point to a market in Wuhan, China as the origin of the coronavirus pandemic."
The researchers analyzed data from a range of sources to look for clues to how the pandemic arose. They concluded that the coronavirus was present in live mammals sold in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in late 2019. The research suggests that the virus very likely twice spilled over into people working or shopping at the market.
The researchers said they found no support for an alternate hypothesis that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan.
"When you look at all of the evidence together, it's an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market," said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of both studies....
Many of the first cases of Covid-19 clustered around the Huanan market.
Worobey posted an animated GIF on Twitter summarizing what he sees as some of the most compelling evidence that the virus originated from the market.
it includes the fact that "the vast majority" of cases at the market came specifically from where wildlife was being sold — and that an animal cage and a freezer at the market even tested positive for the presence of Covid-19.
According to CNN the lead researcher "called the findings 'game, set and match' for the theory that the pandemic originated in a lab. 'It's no longer something that makes sense to imagine that this started any other way.'"
The researchers said they found no support for an alternate hypothesis that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan.
"When you look at all of the evidence together, it's an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market," said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of both studies....
Many of the first cases of Covid-19 clustered around the Huanan market.
Worobey posted an animated GIF on Twitter summarizing what he sees as some of the most compelling evidence that the virus originated from the market.
it includes the fact that "the vast majority" of cases at the market came specifically from where wildlife was being sold — and that an animal cage and a freezer at the market even tested positive for the presence of Covid-19.
According to CNN the lead researcher "called the findings 'game, set and match' for the theory that the pandemic originated in a lab. 'It's no longer something that makes sense to imagine that this started any other way.'"
Evidence won't change anything (Score:4, Insightful)
The conspiracy nuts will still claim that Dr. Fauci personally lead the team that engineered the virus an underground bio weapons facility in mainland China, in cooperation with Obama and the Clintons, in an attempt to steal the election.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't "personall lead the team", but he did sign off on the funding. Let's get some perspective folks.
Re:Evidence won't change anything (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want to study groundwater pollution, where do you go? To where the ground water is polluted!
Playing basketball doesn't make you tall. Studying coronaviruses near coronaviruses doesn't mean that you created the coronaviruses.
The perspective we need to get is that, if the lab were responsible, the best cover-up that money can buy would be to blame the lab without evidence such that everybody who puts forth that hypothesis is branded a conspiracy-theory nut.
Re: (Score:3)
Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Chinese deceptions unmasked (Score:3)
The demonstrable willingness of the Chinese to obstruct the investigation renders the detail about the actual origin almost irrelevant; we were taught that the Chinese are not to be trusted. All comments by Chinese government institutions need to be treated with the same scepticism as those of President Trump...
Re: (Score:2)
The CCP certainly has given the world plenty of reason not to trust it. But, in fairness to China (And assuming that this study is correct and the âoelab releaseâ accusations are, in fact, bogus) I can certainly understand their reaction. Imagine some random MAGA types decided to get their jollies for the day by accusing *you* of wrongdoings you did not commit, demanding that you âoecooperateâ with them to âoeproveâ your own guilt. How would *you* react? In that scenario, my o
Scientific enquiry should be free (Score:4, Insightful)
There is zero doubt that the Chinese failed to provide the data required to fulfil their undertakings both before the pandemic emerged and then later in allowing an international investigation of what had happened. Both are, I believe, required as part of WHO protocols to enable everyone to learn the lessons of incidents. If the Chinese had refused permission for the international team to visit on the grounds you suggest, that would have been honest. Slyly failing to produce the data required to allow the mission they had agreed to to do their job is surely unacceptable behaviour. Given their treatment of Hong Kong in recent months in blatant violation of their international obligations agree to at the time of its return by the UK, this doesn't come as a surprise, but merely proves they are untrustworthy, dishonourable and their word is not to be taken seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
And the thing is, the origin does not matter one bit.
It doesn't? You mean to say COVID-19 is the only known virus capable of making an instantaneous jump from a non-human reservoir to humans and wreaking havoc globally? It matters an extreme amount where COVID came from in order to prevent this BS from happening again.
Whether it was due to poor handling in a lab, or because of a sub-human wet meat market, it was preventable and came out of an environment that is totally avoidable in this day and age.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
A pandemic was inevitable. If it didn't start there it would have started somewhere else eventually.
We should have been more prepared.
Re: Does it matter? (Score:2)
We know 100% it could have originated from the market, the idea tracks pretty perfectly with how things played out as we know it. The lab leak story still has some holes in it but still couldn't be ruled out so just do both.
Countries need to really go at wet markets with education, alternatives and enforcement and I would bet every lab above BSL-3 has had their buttholes puckered for 2 years.
Re: (Score:2)
I think people want to know the origin so that 1) they know who to blame (useless), and 2) they hope it's not natural because that would invalidate their belief system and it might mean that they have to wear masks or get a vaccine in the future again.
Re: (Score:2)
No, scientists want to know the origin so they can stop the next one or at least be better warned. Most people don't give a damn.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a sure fire way to prove the market hypothesis, find ancestors of the virus in the wild. Evolution leaves trails, locate the trail and you have your proof. But sadly intensive searching has not located a trail.
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, the SARS and MERS evolutionary trails were located in the wild within a couple months of their outbreaks.
Of course it matters (Score:2)
They were really hoping we would all just think it came out of a lab and that instead of needing to make massive changes to their deforestation policy we'd all just blame Ant
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And the thing is, the origin does not matter one bit.
You are wrong about this point. Knowing it's origin could be the key to preventing the next would-be pandemic.
Re: (Score:2)
When a natural source is identified humans are going to wipe out that population of animals. Because if that population could evolve one pandemic, it is very likely it could evolve another, slightly different, one. The natural source for this has to be located so that it can be eliminated. This does not imply eliminating a whole species, only the specific group that is infected would be eliminated.
Re: (Score:2)
It's FAR too late for that to do any good. SARS-CoV-2 has spread to animal populations all over the world at this point. Eliminating it from potential animal sources would take a mass extinction event, because it's now everywhere, and the next SARS-CoV-2 variant is FAR more likely to come from a human anyway.
An original animal source is completely irrelevant at this point when it comes to this particular virus. Could have been relevant in mid-2019, would just be another Four Pests Campaign [wikipedia.org] disaster now.
A
Re: (Score:2)
I am not talking about SARS-CoV-2, I am talking about it's progenitor.
Re: (Score:2)
When a natural source is identified humans are going to wipe out that population of animals.
Nah, pangolins are a protected species. It's better to just vaccinate them.
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit, politicization has nothing to do with finding the truth. It does have something to do accepting the truth.
Re: (Score:2)
The origin of the virus is such a heavily politicized topic now that there is no possibility of ever finding out the truth. Even if it is out there, it will drown in a sea of bullshit and bickering. And the thing is, the origin does not matter one bit. What matters is the reality that is unfolding after the fact, and this reality is quite worrying indeed.
Yes, I agree; the tactic of creating a whirlwind shitstorm of conspiracy theories guaranteed (by design?) to make The Truth, impossible to find, should be quite worrying. That's a tactic that can be now used by every side everywhere against everyone, since COVID proved to Greed just how easy it is to spread lies as facts.
But the unfolding reality is there are way too many sheep, and not enough citizens in the world. Corruption is now quite comfortable for the flock.
Re: (Score:2)
The origin of the virus is such a heavily politicized topic now that there is no possibility of ever finding out the truth.
Horseshit. The studies don't care about your politics. If you want politics wait for Fox News to give you a summary, but there is still perfectly adequate bias free investigations underway and source material for you to read.
And interestingly these studies all seem to be converging on the same conclusion, that the lab was not the source and the wet market was. This is just the latest study to come to this conclusion. You could broaden your view to political pundits and talkshow guests then if you want polit
Misinformation! (Score:2, Flamebait)
Remember when this was a "racist conspiracy theory" that would get you banned from twitter/reddit/facebook/youtube for "misinformation"?
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, when was that?
Re: (Score:2)
Pretending (Score:2)
First spread was from the market (Score:2, Informative)
So what the data seems to say is that the first human spread was tracked to the market. The conclusion is that because the first infected were near the live animal section that the virus originated there, which is reasonable.
However, it's just as reasonable to say that one of the lab workers went to the market to get dinner and dropped off some COVID.
Accidents happen. I mean they just found a bunch of smallpox in the back of a freezer last year, and that stuff is known to be deadly.
Re: (Score:2)
However, it's just as reasonable to say that one of the lab workers went to the market to get dinner and dropped off some COVID.
Get dinner at the other side of the city without infecting people on the way? That is not possible "accidentally". The only way that kind of scenario happens is if it is done on purpose. If this was an infectious person accidentally breaching lab safety protocols the origin wouldn't have been traced to the market.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a viral lab a few blocks from the wet market in Wuhan.
Re: (Score:2)
So what the data seems to say is that the first human spread was tracked to the market.
If you filter the data until it fits your narrative, then yes. But if you take all data available, a different picture emerges. Consider that the virus was already found in samples taken in September 2019 in Italy, outside of the reach of CCP propaganda. This means the virus infected humans from at least summer 2019 on, if not earlier. We also know that all viruses evolve to become more infectious, so the initial spread was slower than the one seen from December 2019 on, the earliest time for which CCP pro
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It doesn't really matter what you believe (Score:5, Insightful)
Here we see an example of the next phase of their disinformation campaign: undermining science in general.
This was always their goal. It produced too many inconvenient facts.
The problem is science is kind of All or nothing (Score:2)
And as much as I hate to admit it religious extremists also needed to attack science because things like evolution and the Big bang
Re: (Score:2)
There has never been ANY evidence linking it to a lab leak. WTF are you talking about? All of the evidence has always pointed to the market.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean there's also that Little Teller-Ulam widget.
Boy, that made some noise.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The original email exchanges between leading scientists (including Fauci) showed them discussing "60-80%" probability this was a lab accident due to the unusual features of the virus. The very same week there was a Lancet paper on the "Proximal Origins" of COVID which declared it highly unlikely it came from a
Re: (Score:2)
Except there isn't much conflicting evidence. There's a lack of absolute evidence pointing to a lab but there never could be evidence because China blocked any thorough independent investigation.
The original email exchanges between leading scientists (including Fauci) showed them discussing "60-80%" probability this was a lab accident due to the unusual features of the virus. The very same week there was a Lancet paper on the "Proximal Origins" of COVID which declared it highly unlikely it came from a lab. Why the divergence? In the same email exchange it was quickly decided that further review into the lab origin would be "detrimental to science" so they quickly chose to sweep it under the rug. Dishonesty at the highest level.
The book Viral [amazon.com] does a great step-by-step analysis of the history of the outbreak including going back to the miners that were sickened collecting bat guano. Almost all available evidence -- including the virus own genome -- points to lab accident.
Emphasis mine.
Re: (Score:2)
Now why would China block investigation... Hmm, trying to think of some reason...
Re: (Score:2)
The term "junk science" came about in the 80s IIRC.
Social science, because it uses correlation overwhelmingly (as do medical epidemiological studies), is more prone to being weaponized.
Junk or advocacy science has been a problem for a while. Industries [npr.org] do it, as well as social activists [popularmechanics.com].
Maybe we can compromise ... (Score:2)
With all the conflicting solid peer reviewed studies, ...
Wuhan lab, Wuhan market ... maybe we could just compromise and call it the "Wuhan virus".
Re: Or, in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
The lab is several miles away from the market. Not 400 meters.
Re: Or, in other news (Score:3)
Map here:
https://apps.npr.org/dailygraphics/graphics/covid-wuhan-20210714/synced/series-b.png
Re: Or, in other news (Score:4, Informative)
At least 2 labs in Wuhan.
The ones each of you seem to refer to are the Institute of Virology (about eight miles from the market) and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (about 300 yards away) so in a sense you're both right.
Except Julien, your answer implies that there is no lab within miles of the market and that may be misleading.
I don't know, but I have great doubt in the veracity of either the chinese or us government on this matter, possibly on anything any more..
Sad times.
Re: (Score:2)
Except Julien, your answer implies that there is no lab within miles of the market and that may be misleading.
No, the original statement said virology lab, pretty clearly a reference to the Wuhan Institute ofVirology (WIV).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
There's a virology lab very close to the market, at the School of Medicine in Wuhan. They have a veterinarian and a BSL-3 lab, so it's a convenient place to do research on humanized mice.
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't aware of the other lab. Thanks for pointing that out. I was merely trying to correct the OP statement. The nearby lab is not the one where research on coronavirus was being done, though.
Generally, I would not be inclined to believe the Chinese government story. But in this particular matter, it's not just Chinese vs US government stories. Many US scientists also disagree with each other. We may indeed never know the truth. Knowing it won't change what happened, either. But it would help learn diffe
Re: (Score:2)
It's also not a BSL-4 rated lab and does not handle any highly infectious viruses.
Yeah the WIV has a few campuses in Wuhan, but you're completely right the only one in question capable of being the source is located quite a way away.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The lab at the School of Medicine in Wuhan has a BSL-3 lab where research is done on humanized mice (it's convenient because there is also a veterinarian available).
YouTuber Potholer54 has a couple good vids (Score:2)
The TL;DR; is a) there's bat caves right around the outbreak where samples of COVID19 were found and were people were hunting bats for the wet markets and b) when you do gain of function there are clear indicators of it that anyone with a background in science can see.
But even without that think about this: COVID doesn't spread well by touch (handwashing stops it) and virtually all the lab work would have been done in pietri dishes.
What's more likely, a Biohazard 4
Re: (Score:2)
What's more likely, a Biohazard 4 lab forgot to wash it's hands or it spread in the wet markets like every scientist is saying?
It's not a conspiracy either way so I don't get why people are so worked up about it.
H1N1 started in the USA: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandem... [cdc.gov]
The next one will probably start somewhere else.
(shrug)
Re: (Score:2)
A researcher touches his nose with contaminated gloves on he will almost assuredly be infected, and probably a-symptomatically, given safety conditions at the WIV something like that was entirely possible.
Re: (Score:2)
Sad times, indeed. The problem with conspiracies is they involve multiple people. And government conspiracies tend to operate like government agencies. Right to very the day Putin got his panties in a twist we heard, daily, about the next leaked memo, the next subpoenad text message, the next bit of juicy testimony from a staffer or janitor or one of the hundreds of other low-level employees about whatever the former US President was up to. VIPs can't make the government do anything without the hundreds of
Re: (Score:2)
At least 2 labs in Wuhan.
And they have a very different BSL levels. The one near the market is a BSL-2 lab, and is not rated to conduct any research on highly infectious diseases. That kind of lab does more with dangerous but not highly infectious viruses and microbes such as Hepatitis and Staph infections.
There's only one BSL-4 lab in Wuhan and it was a long way from the market, and any lab related conspiracy theory references only *that* lab because they were actively conducting research into highly infectious coronaviruses.
But w
It is an administrative building (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
400m, 4000m, kinda irrelevant. It's all in the vicinity of the lab.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for correcting me on this.
Re:Or, in other news (Score:4, Insightful)
I love to draw conclusions here, but I don't, coz' I simply don't know
According to TFA, most cases were from the west side of the market were most wildlife was sold. If it doesn't come from here then it is a big coincidence.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
most cases were from the west side of the market were most wildlife was sold. If it doesn't come from here then it is a big coincidence.
It's not a huge coincidence because that is the most densely populated area of the city.
Re: (Score:3)
This is all irrelevant, for all we know the lab technicial shopped on the west side of the market.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think there is any heart to the conspiracy theories. Those nitwits seem to just make shit up as they go along. Anything contradicting their pet theory of the moment just gets twisted into another joke and called "information".
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The google maps were changed shortly after covid started. Originally the lab was 400 meters away.
Hard to imagine so many people in on such a grand conspiracy, moving huge properties around like that.
I guess the lab could really be anyplace now then. I hope they eventually find it.
Re: (Score:2)
Or in other news, the moon is not made of green cheese as has been widely thought. Rather, it is made of Swiss Cheese. Sasquatch has been known to bite off a chuck periodically. We expect to learn shortly how he's been getting up there. Suspicion falls on Hillary and the Jews.
Re: Another study indicates human origin (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
In any case, the presence of the 19-nucleotide long RNA sequence including the FCS with 100% identity to the reverse complement of the MSH3 mRNA is highly unusual
Viruses sometimes do highly unusual things. That is how they jump species. If it did not have highly unusual mutations we would not be here talking about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
This is just an anecdote, but I took a holiday trip to China in fall 2019, and happened to fly out of the Wuhan airport mid-November. There were security people at the airport, taking the temperature of all outgoing passengers. There were no such controls in any of the other four or five Chinese airports I went through during the trip.
I didn't know about Covid at the time, so I shrugged the thing away as another local bureaucratic idiocy. I realized that's rather interesting a few months later, though I don
Re: (Score:2)
It seems to claim that someone was given a grant to do something that previous natural coronaviruses already did. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
Similar to other enveloped viruses, coronaviruses access host cells by membrane fusion, a process mediated by specific fusion or “spike” proteins on the virion, often activated by cellular proteases. We have identified unique features of the MERS-CoV spike (S) protein cleavage activation. Our findings suggest that S can be activated by furin, a broadly expressed protease, by a two-step cleavage mechanism, occurring at distinct sites, with cleavage events temporally separated. Such furin-mediated activation is unusual in that it occurs in part during virus entry. Our findings may explain the polytropic nature, pathogenicity, and life cycle of this zoonotic coronavirus.
I guess I can't blame you for spreading conspiracy theories, but I think you should probably research shit you read online a little more.
Re: (Score:2)
That's when I found out that the article isn't suspect, but rather, you are.
What you describe as a "grant from the US" is actually grant proposal.
In fact, the grant proposal was rejected for numerous reasons.
The grant proposal references a paper that says the furin cleavage site obviously evolves on its own, as has been witnessed in WIV1-COV- in 2013.
I.e., this has been an area of active research for a long time, and SARS-CoV-2 isn't related to any of the viruses proposed for testing.
I think
Re: (Score:2)
There's no evidence whatsoever that A) The work described in the grant proposal ever happened
Obviously, because A) the Chinese government has been hiding (or destroying) evidence. B) Because Peter Daszak has been hiding (or destroying) evidence. He won't say what research was done there, so no one know what research was done there. And people like you are defending him, for what reason I have no idea. Let the light be shone on the subject.
Secondly, people know about the BSL-4 virology lab, but in this context the BSL-3 lab in downtown Wuhan, right next to the wet market, where work was done on huma
Re: (Score:3)
Obviously, because A) the Chinese government has been hiding (or destroying) evidence. B) Because Peter Daszak has been hiding (or destroying) evidence.
That's firmly a conspiracy theory by any and all definitions.
He won't say what research was done there, so no one know what research was done there.
Being he didn't get the grant, maybe none? ;)
Guilty until he proves himself innocent, eh?
And people like you are defending him, for what reason I have no idea. Let the light be shone on the subject.
I'm not defending him. I don't know the first fucking thing about him.
What I am doing is defending a random individual from an unhinged emotionally unstable individual.
Secondly, people know about the BSL-4 virology lab, but in this context the BSL-3 lab in downtown Wuhan, right next to the wet market, where work was done on humanized mice in less-than-safe conditions (BSL-3), is probably more relevant.
The argument now, is that instead of creating this frankenvirus in the lab dedicated to virology, they did it in the Chinese CDC lab?
You're a conspiracy theorist. It's actually kind of sad.
Re: (Score:2)
I've maybe argued against some dipshits foaming at the mouth trying to turn the CCP into a boogeyman, causative of all ills, but it'd take a truly dumb motherfucker to interpret that as pro-brutal-dictatorship.
Let's talk about Dunning-Kruger.
I'm obviously not confident they're innocent of anything, and I'm also not confident they're guilty of some of the things they're claimed to be guilty of.
You, however, seem to be confident.
That literally makes
Re: (Score:2)
4 of the last 6 of your posts contain the abbreviation "CCP".
Additionally on the first page of your posts you have gold nuggets like the topic you started "China is built upon lies..", and calling people a Chinese epithet for "Communist"
I think the shill is pretty obvious here.
Re: (Score:2)
Your sentences are nonsense.
Oh? Let's go over them.
Says the fucker too stupid to know the correct definition of the things he uses as attempted insults.
You were confused about the meaning of Dunning-Kruger since you (as someone who is confident in your position, and are clearly no expert) have accused me (someone who is not confident in my position, and also no expert) of being a Dunning-Kruger case. This sentence makes a lot of sense, because a confident person who is no expert exists on the side of the curve that's called "Mount Stupid".
That's you.
4 of the last 6 of your posts contain the abbreviation "CCP".
This sentence makes note of the fact that 66.6% of your last 6 posts used the word C
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes he has good insight.
Re: (Score:2)
China obstructs any effort at analysis by outsiders regardless of what the are analyzing. That's a mighty high bar you set up to limbo under.
Re: WHO data? (Score:2, Interesting)
yes obstructs everyone including the WHO, which is why the data is so suspect.
There's no reason to believe that China was truthful about the number and location of the early cases. That all child have been generated by model: i.e. "what would an epidemic look like if it started from this market?"
And that was the narrative that they were pushing all along.
Now, that level of coordinated misinformation is pretty hard to pull off, but if there's a place that could and would do it right now it's China.
Also, the
Re: (Score:2)
There is a viral lab a few blocks away from the market.
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect that your last sentence came across as too emotional, looking for blame rather than facts. Specifically, it is somewhat tangential to your main point (your main point being that the data is probably inaccurate, which is fact separate from whether the CCP should be blamed for deaths).
Basically, if you say something mildly controversial, you need to write like you are writing a fourth grade essay: a clear topic sentence, followed by facts supporting it. Otherwise people will latch onto the weakest p
Re: (Score:2)
There has been a colossal failure to stem a localised disease, and having lost relatives and patients to this
Yes, but you should have made that a separate paragraph with its own supporting facts (or even a separate post).
Re: (Score:2)
Ya, why would the U.S. work with Chinese researches on flus since the have a history of starting in China. Those crazy scientists being all sensible again, the nerve of them. Jesus, you're a dingbat.
Re: (Score:2)
But I will point out that most professional scientists of any stripe have a vested interest in not making their profession look bad.
They said so themselves. See https://theintercept.com/2022/... [theintercept.com] As early as April 2020 Fauci was trying to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis as "a shiny object that will go away." One of the scientists on their little email exchange at the outset stated quite clearly:
“However, further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular,”
tl;dr - millions dead is a lot of professional egg on their face. Best to just pretend it didn't happen.
Re: (Score:2)
The Slashdot hive mind is infected with "official narrative" - it's mostly old IT guys now; the broad scientific base has mostly left. Your data and logic will be lost on them.
Re: (Score:2)
They can learn.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't completely remove the lab, but it makes it highly unlikely given the locations of the initial cases.
The Wuhan BSL-3 virus lab is right downtown, a few blocks from the wet market. So no, the location of the lab doesn't make it less suspicious. (There is more than one viral lab in Wuhan, and the one downtown was involved in studying coronavirus in humanized mice).
Re: (Score:2)
You can only show that live animals there had the virus.
You can't do that because the animals were all destroyed before they were tested.
Re: (Score:2)
How do they account for the virus being found in cancer biopsies and waste samples from august 2019 in europe?
False positives.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is a second viral lab a few blocks away from the market.
Re: (Score:2)
Who paid for the research?
"Follow he feedbag"
Re: (Score:2)
In either case China ACTIVELY tried to supress and cover up this outbreak. They destroyed samples, reports, research. Silenced the whistleblowers, denied there was even a problem. All the while they plundered the world for PPE, put in travel restrictions internally, put the PLA head of bioweapons as head of the response, and let the virus spread internationally.
In other words, the fuckers knew (or at least strongly suspected) what was coming, and they hid it until it was too late. They deliberately inflicted this plague upon the world through their inaction. They could have locked down Wuhan to EVERYONE. Tried to stop the spread out of the affected areas, or at least done something when they became aware of it, but they didn't.
For that reason alone, Xi and the whole CCP leadership should be swinging at the end of a rope by now.
So yeah, we probably will never find out where Covid-19 came from, unless there's some sort of USSR type collapse of the CCP at some point, and the old records are found and dusted off. The important thing is, how do we stop/minimise the chances of the next one ?
The world has demonstrated its woefully unprepared for pandemics such as these. Poor countries struggle with any form of health response, developing countries try their best, and the rich countries seem to want to commit suicide arguing over dumb shit political point scoring.
Mod up... I suspect the wet market is more likely true, but whether it was a wet market of the type that the authorities had been warned about repeatedly for years or a lab leak, is essentially irrelevant.
At least Wuhan authorities, and possibly central CCP authorities, worked hard to suppress news of a viral disease late in 2019. They jailed a treating doctor (I forget whether it was an E.R., ICU or pulmonary care doc) for warning his family of some patients having surprisingly difficulty, sometimes dying,