A new report on origins of the Covid-19 Pandemic will be submitted to the president if Joe Biden's security personnel are on point. After several US scientists said they weren't certain of the origin of Sars-CoV-2, Biden gave his team 90 days to examine the virus' origins.
It will be fascinating to see how Bidens team addresses the critical questions surrounding the origins and spread of Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19. Is it possible that the virus was born naturally from viral spillovers from bats into other animals and then onto humans? Did it escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology If so, was it made more virulent?
These are crucial questions, to put it mildly. It would be extremely helpful to understand how the pandemic started if we are to prevent another one. Considering the lack of information Bidens' team has uncovered over the past three month, while the Chinese authorities continue to provide very little additional data, it is unlikely that hard answers will be given this week.
Donald Trump had raised the possibility of a leak at the Wuhan Institute, but the Chinese rejected it flatly. However, the claim was not believed until May when 18 top scientists wrote a letter to Science, in which they claimed that both spillover and leak theories are equally plausible. A recent investigation by the World Health Organization at Wuhan accused them of not considering both possibilities.
The news that the US was taking the theory of the lab leak seriously prompted a storm of commentators who allege that the scientific establishment is covering up the mistakes made by Chinese scientists. Sir Richard Dearlove (ex-head of MI6) claimed that certain scientific journals refused to publish any information that was contrary to the Chinese view.
Scientists' inability to identify the intermediate animal that transmitted the virus to bats is the main evidence supporting a laboratory leak. The Wuhan institute also houses a laboratory headed by Shi Zhengli, virologist who discovered the origins of the Sars virus from bats.
Her team specializes in coronavirus research. One of the coronavirus research centers in the world was located in the same city that Covid-19 first appeared. This is a coincidence that conspiracy theorists find difficult to believe.
Zhengli denied claims that she was working on a virus that would make it more virulent, or that she and her staff were infected by a new coronavirus. This view is supported by a review of Cell by scientists.
It is also possible that Sars-CoV-2 can be transmitted easily among humans, which raises suspicions about a genetically altered virus. Professor David Robertson of Glasgow University's centre for virus research dismisses this notion.
It is not dangerous to play with viruses in labs. The real danger comes from the wildlife trading
Yes, the virus can be spread through asymptomatic carriers. This is ideal for human transmission. How does a naturally occurring virus like this come about? After all, it is very effective at infecting people. It isn't just a virus that infects humans. It is found in pangolins. It can easily spread from humans to mink and has been found in deer in the US. It is not a virus that can be adapted to humans. It is what we refer to as a generalist virus or promiscuous virus.
Sir Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust, however, took the possibility that Covid-19 had emerged from a laboratory leak very seriously. Spike: The Virus vs the People is his latest book. He explains that his initial reaction to Covid-19's emergence was one of horror. However, he believed it could have escaped from a virus centre. He changed his mind after a series of intense discussions with other researchers.
The evidence suggests that Covid-19 was formed after a natural spillover, as it stands now. However, nobody can rule out an alternative.
Professor James Wood from Cambridge University supports this point. Although there is strong evidence to support the claim that this was caused by natural spillovers, some political parties don't like that argument. Because they believe that Covid-19 was caused in part by a laboratory leak, this distracts from the increasing evidence that biodiversity loss, deforestation, and wildlife trade are real threats to natural spillovers.
So, playing with viruses in labs is not a dangerous activity. The real danger comes from wildlife trade. This involves clearing forests and bulldozing forests to make way for mines and to create land for farmers. Numerous species of viruses and bacteria that are endemic to wildlife and vegetation are released into the wild to find new hosts. This is what has happened to HIV, Sars, and most likely Covid-19.
This, according to many scientists, is the true lesson of Covid-19.
