Two papers, one in Science, and one in Cell, have been published in the last month. They address the question of whether Covid-19 was a zoonotic or escaped virus from Wuhan Institute of Virology. Although we don't know the exact origin of the virus, it is becoming more likely that it originated in a wet market.
This is why it's important. As the LA Times article notes, click on the screenshot to see the full article. If you hit a paywall it will be republished on Yahoo! Finance) The pandemic's source will determine the precautions that we would take. We would want to close any markets that sell it if it was from a wet one. (I believe they should be shut down anyway because, as Ive witnessed, animals are kept in horrible conditions. We would want to have stricter regulations in the lab if it was eluded from the WIV.
Click on the link or below.
The column was written by Michale Hiltzik (a Times business writer), so it is worth considering. He does, however, refer to the evidence from the top-tier journals in which a lab origin seems unlikely. He claims that there is no evidence to support the lab-leak hypothesis, which is a lesson learned in these two papers. Here is a quote from the LA Times article
It would be incorrect to claim that the evidence for the laboratory leak theory is diminishing. This is because there was never any evidence to support the theory. It was just conjecture. The ideology behind the lab leak theory was evident from the beginning. It wasn't science. Although it used science vocabulary, this is a common technique to bamboozle a vulnerable public. Rasmussen said that there is no evidence of a laboratory leak. He stated that the virus was discovered in Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This is it. That's it. These theories are often based on misinformation or scientific ignorance. The Virology Institute is located only 300 yards from the animal marketplace that was believed to have been the source of the first infection. This is incorrect. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control is located 300 yards away. It doesn't do research on viruses. The Virology Institute, however, is approximately 7.5 miles away from the market. It would be like claiming that the Santa Monica disease outbreak was caused by the UCLA lab seven miles away.
WIV-origin was also supported by a mistranslation. When Michael McCaul, a Texas congressman claimed that WIV had issued a $606million contract for a new system of air conditioning. This was reported by the Washington Post (the amounts have since been corrected). It turned out that the amount actually was $606,000. That is roughly what it would cost to install a new A/C in my laboratory.
Another evidence supporting the WIV origin, such as the engineered adaptation of virus to humans, has been discredited since infected mammals. A famous furin cleaveage location, which was allegedly put into the virus' code for the spike protein in order to make it more infectious, has now been observed in other coronavirus surge proteins.
Christopher Ford, an ex-Assistant Secretary of State, wrote an open letter recounting how the State Department promoted the WIV origin theory without any scientific evidence. This was mainly because the intelligence division saw sinister motives stronger than the evidence.
Although we will never know the exact source of the pandemic, the epidemiological evidence strongly suggests that it was a wet market and not a WIV. They also found virus material in the wet markets.
The article ends with some common sense.
The evidence supporting the hypothesis that the pandemic began in a natural leap from animals to people has advanced, with more evidence being drawn from the virus' genetic footprint. However, evidence for a lab leak has remained inactive. There is no evidence to suggest that there could be a lab leak this year. This was not the case in 2020 when it was widely rejected. A laboratory source of the SARS2 virus would be impossible for any reputable scientist to deny. It is looking increasingly like a dead end. It is possible to pursue it even if there are no natural explanations. This could be dangerous for human health.
The wet market was photographed January 21, 2020. (AP Photo by Dake Kang)
h/t Woody
