Final say on COVID’s origins?

Former US President Donald Trump was adamant COVID came from a Chinese laboratory. The World Health Organization investigated and decided otherwise. Now, a group of scientists say they have definitively determined the origin of virus.

The team has published its findings in two separate articles in Science (here and here) and says its quest for answers is over.

“The siren has definitely sounded on the lab leak theory,” Professor Edward Holmes, a world-leading expert on virus evolution and co-author of both papers, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“In terms of what we can reasonably do, with the available science and the science we’ll get in the foreseeable future, I think we’re at the end of the road frankly. There’s not a lot more to mine.”

The team says COVID almost certainly jumped from animals to humans in Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, with the researchers even pinpointing the most likely section of the market where it occurred.

Professor Dominic Dwyer, the director of public health pathology in NSW and a member of the WHO team that travelled to Wuhan, agrees.

“That’s what we thought originally back when we did the first report,” he said.

“This is yet another brick added to the wall of information around zoonotic infection.”

The SMH says that using Chinese and WHO data, public online maps, photos, business registries and official reports, the scientists reconstructed a map of the market, including human cases and COVID-postive environmental samples from late 2019.

The market wildlife section was found to have COVID-19 all over it, with eight of the earliest human cases working nearby.

A stall where COVID-19 was found on a metal cage, a machine used to remove hair and feathers from animals, two carts used for moving animal cages, and a nearby water drain, was also visited by Prof. Holmes on a trip to Wuhan in 2014 where he snapped a photo of caged racoon dogs stacked on top of caged birds.

“We can’t prove it is this exact stall, but the data is very suggestive,” he said.

In their second paper, the team determined the two viral lineages that were detected a week apart in December 2019, and which one was the most likely one to have been transmitted from animals to humans.

Using computers to simulate the most likely sequence of events that would produce the two strains, which differ by two small changes in their genetic codes, they found it exceedingly unlikely that the virus would jump into humans and then split into two strains.

Do you think these findings will make the lab theory go away?

3 comments

I'm surprised there are no comments so far - 

It appears to me that in the interests of world health, old fashioned cultures must modernize their ways, upgrade their standards, and follow the findings of science to ensure that mankind survives in this world.

And obviously, in this case in China, where it is believed that Covid19 originated, now that more people are moving in and out of their local areas, and visitors are entering and leaving local areas, everyone must be aware of and adhere to higher standards, and adjust cultural ways to fit those requirements.

I am wondering though, if Covid19 originally "jumped" from animals to humans in the Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, why are animals not contacting Covid19? Is it possible that my dog got Covid19? Is that one reason why we are experiencing another "wave" of Covid19 in Australia? Should there be shots for our pets?   

Ursh

Is it not possible that the Covid 19 virus was developed for biological warfare purposes inside the laboratory and jumped out into the markets ?

Trump's accusation doesn't carry a lot of weight because he made those statements without any proof. WHO cannot be believed because of the links to China with the head of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the facts that China would not allow investigators in for some months and not at all in parts of the laboratories. The link that allows transfer of Covid from animals to humans has not been proven so doesn't support or refute the origin claim.

What we have, according to the post, is two groups of scientists that disagree on the major points of the origin of Covid. This is very similar to two groups of scientists that disagree on climate change so the result of the findings will be like the brouhaha on climate change, the loudest voice will be supreme. Sinophiles will lap up the market theory and others will reject it so which side the media takes will be the determinant factor as to which group of scientists will be believed.

The history of viruses in China started long before the present pandemic. Wet markets selling strange and living animals were always sold. The poverty stricken masses in China ate whatever they could and died at a tremendous rate....an example is the Manchurian plague caused by a virus.

My personal belief based on historical evidence tells me that the lab story is utterly flawed.  

3 comments



To make a comment, please register or login

Preview your comment