Comment by jacobolus
18 hours ago
This is not an accurate description. The first identified patients were people working in or living near a "wet market" where (among other things) various wild animals were sold. It's plausible that someone was infected somewhere else and the market was only the site of a "superspreader event" (rather than the earliest jump from some other animal to humans), but further details are speculative, informed by indirect phylogenetic evidence rather than direct forensic evidence.
It's not unusual/unexpected that there were labs working on coronavirus research in several major Chinese cities: the 2002 SARS outbreak, which began in southern China and caught researchers and public health officials off guard, led to significant investment in the study of coronaviruses.
It is very unlikely that the initial superspreader event of a pandemic would be in a wet market that would be the one place for an animal spillover.
And when you look at the documented lab release of SARS-CoV-1, it killed the researcher's mother. If a lab leak happened, we would expect it to hit the people closest to the researchers at the lab who were infected, and the places they visited. Hitting only the wet market isn't very likely.
The outbreak looks like a wet market spillover. The fact that it happened in the same city as WIV is an unusual coincidence, but if the virus developed in rural Hubei, it was likely it would spillover in Wuhan.
> The outbreak looks like a wet market spillover.
Zoonotic spillover is not a spontaneous 0->100 event, there should be a trail of intermediate hosts and adjacent infections that there is zero evidence of.
> If a lab leak happened, we would expect it to hit the people closest
thats not representative of sarscov2. People in the same household could fail to spread infection.
> Hitting only the wet market isn't very likely.
It didnt. There were early cases outside of the wet market.
> unusual coincidence
A novel coronavirus appearing outside a coronavirus gain-of-function research lab is not a coincidence. Id sooner believe it was a sleight of hand to cover for a terrorist attack.
> there should be a trail of intermediate hosts and adjacent infections that there is zero evidence of.
just because we are missing a link does not mean it doesn't exist. Christians use similar arguments to try and disprove evolution.
> thats not representative of sarscov2. People in the same household could fail to spread infection.
so you think a single person in the lab was infected (with no evidence), and then right as they were contagious, went straight to the wet market and on the way, infected not a single person related to the lab or degrees of separation from it? this is the case you are making?
> There were early cases outside of the wet market.
no there aren't
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4454?referrer...
> Id sooner believe it was a sleight of hand to cover for a terrorist attack.
that's because your way of thinking is conspiratorial and so you assume malintent with very little evidence
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I think perhaps there is a correlation with population density as well. Wuhan is fairly dense, and the wet market that is subject to speculation is located in the most densely populated district of wuhan.
Is it possible that the animals at the wet market itself was the source? Sure. But it seems sort of coincidental to me it is also the most dense area of the city; could’ve already been spreading and this location just happened to be where a major outbreak occurred from density factors alone.
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The first corona identified. The Wuhan workers got sick around a month before.
They also didn’t find any animal corona samples at the market. Also around 50% of people of the initial cluster had no connection to the market.
Also the hospital where the lab workers were treated was on the corner of this market.
Now, we just need a few sources for these claims.
There was supposedly a "US intelligence report" which claimed that three workers at the lab went to a hospital for treatment for some kind of viral illness in November 2019, but it is not known what illness that was. According to journalists, within the US intelligence community opinions were mixed about possible viral origins, with some intelligence officials believing the lab had something to do with the origin of the virus while other intelligence officials considered that hypothesis implausible. There's not a lot of specific public detail about what information or analysis informed those opinions.
All sides of the question were heavily politicized. The Trump administration and the US GOP have heavily pushed a lab leak hypothesis and used it to argue against China and against scientists (e.g. turning Anthony Fauci into a bogeyman). On the other side, China has blocked investigations and tried to steer public statements by various organizations away from anything that would question their government's motives or competence.
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China denies the claim that these lab workers were sick at all. Even if they're lying, there is no proof they fell sick with Covid-19 and there is strong evidence they did not. All workers at the lab were later tested for Sars-CoV-2 antibodies and came up negative. Unless that's also a lie.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/24/china-rejects-...
The bioengineering origin is, according to the overwhelming consensus of virologists, not plausible scientifically. It also requires a large and airtight conspiracy involving a number of respected scientists. Conspiracy theories are possible, but never parsimonious.
If we're going in for conspiracies, you should consider that the US intelligence community has a proven track record of lying for political gain. The Iraq War was started by a conspiracy.
Scientists have narrowed it down to the area in the market where the corona virus was first detected, what are you on about?
SARS-CoV-2–positive environmental samples were spatially clustered around vendors selling live mammals.
Also don't forget other pandemics have some from wet markets too. Bird flu and SARS. Do you think they were also lab leaks?