The origin of Covid - nature or man made?

[Tres Leches]

The received wisdom at the start of the pandemic was that it started at wet markets in Wuhan, China. Since then I've heard little reporting that substantially contradicts this assertion. Any discussion I've heard has a decidedly political flavor.

I read an article that looks in depth at the origins of the virus. (Caution: It's very long read.)


Interestingly, I didn't know there have been a number of dangerous lab leaks worldwide in the past few decades. The lab studying bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology worked under lax levels of safety compared to the higher level of safety used to study deadly pathogens like the Ebola virus.

Before 2020, the rules followed by virologists in China and elsewhere required that experiments with the SARS1 and MERS viruses be conducted in BSL3 conditions. But all other bat coronaviruses could be studied in BSL2, the next level down. BSL2 requires taking fairly minimal safety precautions, such as wearing lab coats and gloves, not sucking up liquids in a pipette, and putting up biohazard warning signs. Yet a gain-of-function experiment conducted in BSL2 might produce an agent more infectious than either SARS1 or MERS. And if it did, then lab workers would stand a high chance of infection, especially if unvaccinated.

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-orig...-at-wuhan/


[quote]“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” a group of virologists and others wrote in the Lancet on February 19, 2020, when it was really far too soon for anyone to be sure what had happened. Scientists “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” they said, with a stirring rallying call for readers to stand with Chinese colleagues on the frontline of fighting the disease.

Contrary to the letter writers’ assertion, the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab invoked accident, not conspiracy. It surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to distinguish between what they know and what they don’t know. By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving as poor scientists: They were assuring the public of facts they could not know for sure were true.[/quote]

It seems monied interests and politicians of every stripe have been glad to muddy the waters on getting answers on the virus's origins.
There's no definitive evidence pointing to a particular origin of the coronavirus (yet). Of course China isn't exactly a society where information flows unfettered. I hope there are some answers otherwise future pandemics of this magnitude are inevitable.

-Teresa

[Dom]

It's people messing with nature, one way or another.

[skyking]

It started in bats and possibly jumped species at the wet market, a small but significant detail. It is as plausible a scenario as any.
The bat populations host many similar viruses. The less we have contact with them the better, IMO.

[airportkid]

It seems monied interests and politicians of every stripe have been glad to muddy the waters on getting answers on the virus's origins.

Once the world constitution is finally crafted one of its first amendments will have to forbid on pain of death any politician saying publicly anything other than the contact information of his/her campaign office and introducing and turning over the floor to the appropriate experts appointed to actually manage work on issues.  Venturing any opinion on their own, even so trivial as "that's a pretty good restaurant" will result in immediate arrest and a gag stuffed into their mouth.  The risk of someone actually taking something a politician utters seriously is too grave.

[Tres Leches]

It seems monied interests and politicians of every stripe have been glad to muddy the waters on getting answers on the virus's origins.

Once the world constitution is finally crafted one of its first amendments will have to forbid on pain of death any politician saying publicly anything other than the contact information of his/her campaign office and introducing and turning over the floor to the appropriate experts appointed to actually manage work on issues.  Venturing any opinion on their own, even so trivial as "that's a pretty good restaurant" will result in immediate arrest and a gag stuffed into their mouth.  The risk of someone actually taking something a politician utters seriously is too grave.

Those are severe consequences! But alas, that wouldn't stop politicians from pontificating. Our best defense is an educated populace. (Ugh, don't get me started on the frighteningly mediocre state of US public education.)

-Teresa

[Tres Leches]

It started in bats and possibly jumped species at the wet market, a small but significant detail. It is as plausible a scenario as any.
The bat populations host many similar viruses. The less we have contact with them the better, IMO.

The article lays out molecular markers that indicate the coronavirus could have been manipulated via the lab's gain of function research. Labs for years have been manipulating viruses to make them more infectious/ dangerous to us humans.
Of course this doesn't point definitively to a lab leak but it's interesting data.

I agree we should have as little contact as possible with bat populations. In our crowded world, though, it's inevitable humans will have at least incidental contact with wild mammals that carry viruses. Some research - and contact between researchers and animals in laboratories - is necessary. Although I would question why gain of function research is necessary.

-Teresa

[Minimalist]

If we have learned anything about this virus it is that it spreads unnoticed for quite a while before being detected. 
The whole city of Wuhan could have been infected, including the lab workers, administrators, suppliers, cleaning crews, cafeteria workers, etc., before anyone really knew what they were looking at.

The fact that all of this shit started with Fuckface running his mouth makes it all less convincing.

[Fireball]

Here's an interesting tidbit about work at the virology lab.

link

[Inkubus]

Does it matter at this stage where it originated. As long as the various authorities don't waste resources then fine, research away. Providing  that research has the potential to help in some way. But meanwhile:

The Lifting of all lock down restrictions in the UK postponed

We are still in a shitload of trouble. What is slightly encouraging about this is Buffoon Johnson announced it without protest, maybe he's learning to stfu and listen.

[Tres Leches]

Here's an interesting tidbit about work at the virology lab.

link

Interesting article! Thank you. 
It's too bad that people outside China who've hypothesized that the virus may have emerged from a lab instead of jumping from an animal to humans have been dismissed by Western media outlets and told to sit down and be quiet. In my mind that's just as bad as the Chinese censoring their own scientists from speaking up.

-Teresa

[Tres Leches]

Does it matter at this stage where it originated. 

How to prevent or stay 2 steps ahead of future pandemics then? If (and still it's a big if) we have scientists sloppily presiding over lab leaks of dangerous pathogens that kill millions, we may as well go back to the age of leeches and phrenology.

-Teresa

[Minimalist]

Does it matter at this stage where it originated.

Humans love to have someone to blame for their troubles.

[GenesisNemesis]

Still seems pretty likely that it was a natural origin. I know, I know, sorry for pointing out that not every catastrophe has an intention behind it, or people.

[Dom]

Does it matter at this stage where it originated.

Humans love to have someone to blame for their troubles.

Well, if it did escape from a lab, it would be useful to understand exactly how so one can safe guard against similar events at another lab.

[Peebothuhlu]

Here's an interesting tidbit about work at the virology lab.

link

Interesting article! Thank you. 
It's too bad that people outside China who've hypothesized that the virus may have emerged from a lab instead of jumping from an animal to humans have been dismissed by Western media outlets and told to sit down and be quiet. In my mind that's just as bad as the Chinese censoring their own scientists from speaking up.

-Teresa

 People who express the idea that this virus may have been lab engineered have not been told to sit down and keep quiet.

They been told that their idea is weird. That nature is more than capable of 'Finding a way' (Funny how people seem accepting of fictional dinosaurs working around their constraints as a 'Good thing') And to implement a whole host of reactions to try and help stop the spread of this virus' infections (To which we've seen an interresting correlation between the conspiracy folks and infection rates....)

If the concencus of Astronomers are saying they aren't seeing little green men but the conspiracy nutters on that side are still insiting there are little green men then I've even less hope for people accepting the concsnsus of scientists on the biology side saying it jumped species (Which is pretty much how humanity is contracting most of its bugs I dare  say)

Sorry... is kind of a 'Hot button' for m'self.

EDIT: Here's a naffy video expanding and explaining such details.



Not at work.

[Minimalist]

Does it matter at this stage where it originated.

Humans love to have someone to blame for their troubles.

Well, if it did escape from a lab, it would be useful to understand exactly how so one can safe guard against similar events at another lab.

My point from up above was, how do you know that it didn't escape INTO the lab.  Maybe some worker had a bat on rye sandwich for lunch and contracted it and brought it into the lab and spread it around to his/her co-workers?  This thing was running loose in a city of 11 million people for who knows how long?  I doubt a definitive answer will ever be determined.

[Tres Leches]

Here's an interesting tidbit about work at the virology lab.

link

Interesting article! Thank you. 
It's too bad that people outside China who've hypothesized that the virus may have emerged from a lab instead of jumping from an animal to humans have been dismissed by Western media outlets and told to sit down and be quiet. In my mind that's just as bad as the Chinese censoring their own scientists from speaking up.

-Teresa

 People who express the idea that this virus may have been lab engineered have not been told to sit down and keep quiet.

They been told that their idea is weird. That nature is more than capable of 'Finding a way' (Funny how people seem accepting of fictional dinosaurs working around their constraints as a 'Good thing') And to implement a whole host of reactions to try and help stop the spread of this virus' infections (To which we've seen an interresting correlation between the conspiracy folks and infection rates....)

If the concencus of Astronomers are saying they aren't seeing little green men but the conspiracy nutters on that side are still insiting there are little green men then I've even less hope for people accepting the concsnsus of scientists on the biology side saying it jumped species (Which is pretty much how humanity is contracting most of its bugs I dare  say)

Sorry... is kind of a 'Hot button' for m'self.

EDIT: Here's a naffy video expanding and explaining such details.



Not at work.

I watched the video, thank you. (Did you read the article I linked above?) I'm not married to a particular answer to the question of where the coronavirus originated but I was disappointed in the video. It threw up some softball videos from Fox news and articles in the Daily Mail saying it was a lab leak - of course these are rather easy to scoff at because these are disreputable and politically biased sources to begin with. I'm not able to read Chinese either so the screenshots of Chinese sources were off-putting. Oddly, the video starts and ends abruptly with no byline or clue on who created the video.

Is this video saying definitively that the virus's origins were zoonotic? If yes, color me skeptical. There's no scientific consensus on this question.

-Teresa

[Peebothuhlu]

People who express the idea that this virus may have been lab engineered have not been told to sit down and keep quiet.

They been told that their idea is weird. That nature is more than capable of 'Finding a way' (Funny how people seem accepting of fictional dinosaurs working around their constraints as a 'Good thing') And to implement a whole host of reactions to try and help stop the spread of this virus' infections (To which we've seen an interresting correlation between the conspiracy folks and infection rates....)

If the concencus of Astronomers are saying they aren't seeing little green men but the conspiracy nutters on that side are still insiting there are little green men then I've even less hope for people accepting the concsnsus of scientists on the biology side saying it jumped species (Which is pretty much how humanity is contracting most of its bugs I dare  say)

Sorry... is kind of a 'Hot button' for m'self.

EDIT: Here's a naffy video expanding and explaining such details.




I watched the video, thank you. (Did you read the article I linked above?) I'm not married to a particular answer to the question of where the coronavirus originated but I was disappointed in the video. It threw up some softball videos from Fox news and articles in the Daily Mail saying it was a lab leak - of course these are rather easy to scoff at because these are disreputable and politically biased sources to begin with. I'm not able to read Chinese either so the screenshots of Chinese sources were off-putting. Oddly, the video starts and ends abruptly with no byline or clue on who created the video.

Is this video saying definitively that the virus's origins were zoonotic? If yes, color me skeptical. There's no scientific consensus on this question.

-Teresa

  The video is created by a Youtuber who goes by the handle of 'potholer54'.

It's not making a positive claim on the virus' origins but investigating the origins and dissemination of the reported information about the virus' spread. I.E. Not so mush as how the virus moved about but how the story of the virus was propogated through the written/internet medium.

From what I can gather by thier admissions on thier channel they were a former newspaper journalist. Feel free to partake in grains of salt about said youtuber's credentials. I find their works to be interesting.

I did read your article.

  "There's no scientific consensus on this question."

Except there is as well as your Bulletin article actually referencing such. That the BUlletin article ends with;

  "The common sense perception that a pandemic breaking out in Wuhan might have something to do with a Wuhan lab cooking up novel viruses of maximal danger in unsafe conditions could eventually displace the ideological insistence that whatever Trump said can’t be true.

And then let the reckoning begin."

Seems... off putting to me.

So. We're left with one newspaper article created by a current journalist and one youtube video created by a former journalist.

To which do we give more credence?

Again, there is also the concensus of those preofessional's in their field of study who say that it is, in fact, of said virus 'Jumping' from animal to human host through unsanitary practices on the part of locals in a certain geolgraphical location.

It happens seemingly regularly with avian flues. That it's now happened with a seeming bat contagion is of no surpirse to myself.

All the best.

Not art work.

[Cavebear]

Viruses (and parasites) transfer to humans and other species all the time. It is nearly impossible to determine the original species. We tend to pay more attention to when some virus learns to adapt to our own microsphere but it happens all the time among species who contact each other routinely. So lets say we catch a virus from a pig. You dont know it evolved in a pig originally. The pig may have gotten it from a chicken. The chicken may have gotten it from bat-dropping among the seeds it pecked at.

I fully approve of investigating the nearest sources of the Covid 19 virus. It didn't come from "nowhere". It;'s not like new viruses just appear deus ex maxima. And I've read some thoughtful articles about its origin from a lab in China. That MIGHT be the case. The most likely of the conspiracy theory suggestions point out that the original Covid virus attacked elderly people and that China has a problem with too many elderly people vs younger workers and may have wanted a sort of "natural elderly killing virus" to solve a problem. I'm not ascribing to that, but I can see the logic in the idea.

But most likely, it just came from some bat or pig.

[adey67]

Nothing about the China virus would surprise me, the CCP already initially lied and covered up the start of the pandemic.

[Inkubus]

Nothing about the China virus would surprise me, the CCP already initially lied and covered up the start of the pandemic.

Luc Montagnier Is a homeopath and all round loon

[Inkubus]

...Is this video saying definitively that the virus's origins were zoonotic?

Yes it is. Watch it again 18:00 - 19:40

If yes, color me skeptical. There's no scientific consensus on this question.
-Teresa

Yes there is.

It is absolutely 100% impossible that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a laboratory. The elements in the virus, SARS-CoV-2, all came from bat SARS-like CoVs that circulate in nature, Racaniello told ABC News.

[Tres Leches]

...Is this video saying definitively that the virus's origins were zoonotic?

Yes it is. Watch it again 18:00 - 19:40

If yes, color me skeptical. There's no scientific consensus on this question.
-Teresa

Yes there is.

It is absolutely 100% impossible that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a laboratory. The elements in the virus, SARS-CoV-2, all came from bat SARS-like CoVs that circulate in nature, Racaniello told ABC News.

Your linked article is over a year old. 

But whew! What a relief then that we have a scientific consensus with crystal clear answers on where and how the pandemic started. And we had the answers a year ago at that! Looks like anyone investigating that question since then, including the group from WHO that went to China in January 2021, has been on a fool's errand.

-Teresa

[Inkubus]

Your linked article is over a year old.

Does that make it wrong? And did you look at the video clip I highlighted?

[Tres Leches]

Your linked article is over a year old.

Does that make it wrong? And did you look at the video clip I highlighted?

Yes, I did.
Confirmation bias is real. I'm not married to one particular answer on this - it appears you are - so I won't ignore data on zoonotic origins. Do you have any data or only opinion pieces?

-Teresa