Origin of the Coronavirus

[AltaGuy]

I mean, those are some pretty dumb lab workers.

"Imma sell this here infected bat/monkey/bat-monkey down at the market."

My honest opinion is that we've got it narrowed down to two options: bad lab and bad market. We likely won't ever have definitive proof either way, but seems to me both have some serious issues that should be reformed.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Not really. I am also not believing 3 year old data the Chinese suddenly uploaded now that the noose is closing.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid...gins-1.6782273

China does not want wet market being the source of the pandemic. They've been trying to steer the discourse to other countries and have suppressed any investigations of local markets

[photon]

Interesting read on a new analysis based on a bunch of metagenomic data that was uploaded then removed from a database.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023...ovids-origins/

A group of independent, international researchers has released its full analysis of newly uncovered metagenomic data collected by the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January and February of 2020. The data closely links SARS-CoV-2 to the genetic tracks of wild animals, particularly raccoon dogs, sold at the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group's analysis says.

The full analysis provides additional, compelling evidence that the pandemic coronavirus made its leap to humans through a natural spillover, with a wild animal at the market acting as an intermediate host between the virus' natural reservoir in horseshoe bats and humans. It was authored by 19 scientists, led by Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona; Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in California; and Florence Débarre, a theoretician who specializes in evolutionary biology at France's national research agency, CNRS.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

China does not want wet market being the source of the pandemic. They've been trying to steer the discourse to other countries and have suppressed any investigations of local markets

Fair but why?

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Fair but why?

Likely because a worldwide pandemic starting from illegal wildlife trade and protected species being openly sold at wet markets (after they had already been implicated in the SARS outbreak) in violation of the law makes the Chinese authorities look weak and ineffective.

For the first 1.5 years of the pandemic the Chinese government denied that live animals were even sold at the Huanan Seafood Market. Only when a paper (co-authored by British and Canadian researchers) showing evidence of live animals being sold at the market from 2017 to late 2019 was released did they even concede that. They clearly don't want the wet market or their animal trade implicated in being the source of COVID, any more than they want a lab leak to be the source.

[jjgallow]

Originally Posted by driveway

Having lived in Asia for over a decade, it will take some very, very strong evidence to move me off of my personal belief that the following is the origin of the pandemic:

1) The Wuhan lab was experimenting with coronaviruses

2) Staff at the lab were making extra money by selling animals & meat to the wet market

3) An animal infected with a coronavirus ended up at the wetmarket, and from there infected either people directly, or another animal and from there people.

I'm not sure if you'd classify this as a 'lableak' or a 'zoonotic' or what, but nothing I've read has come close to moving me off this belief.

I also subscribe to this. Just personal opinion with zero evidence but likewise based off of my time in Asia. It's how everything worked that I ever saw.