A team of scientists say it is “beyond reasonable doubt” the Covid pandemic started with infected animals sold at a market, rather than a laboratory leak.
They were analysing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan, China, in January 2020.
The results identify a shortlist of animals – including racoon dogs, civets and bamboo rats – as potential sources of the pandemic.
Despite even highlighting one market stall as a hotspot of both animals and coronavirus, the study cannot provide definitive proof.
The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic.
…
Their analysis was published last year and the raw data made available to other scientists. Now a team in the US and France says they have performed even more advanced genetic analyses to peer deeper into Covid’s early days.
They also have incentive for the origin not to be a live animal market that they very publicly had claimed to have already shut down.
It’s equally embarrassing either way, so the embarrassment proves nothing.
Equally embarrassing? Doubtful. One is a market which can be blamed on illegal activity even after being shut down and ‘little’ people arrested. One represents Chinas first foray into LVL 4 containment bio research and cost billions to build and government officials would have to be held accountable and foreign science assistance to that research program likely cuts off… I’m not pleading the case of a conspiracy theory here, but the lab’s proximity to the outbreak is incredibly suspect.
Why does it have to be equally embarrassing? It just has to be embarrassing enough that they’d take steps to conceal it. Which they did. It doesn’t have to be the most embarrassing situation, just one of the ones that would spur them to act.
But they did shut it down and they did arrest people and they even seized and incinerated every animal at the market without taking samples or even identifying and logging the species.
On the other hand they didn’t shut down WIV, or really do anything to it at all.
It’s 8km away, across a river.
My point is they had a vested interest in the scapegoat excuse. The market is a mild embarassment compared to a possible containment breach. Not taking samples of the meat and cataloging everything actually compounds the scenario. Also if for example a CDC or USAMRIID site was ‘only’ 8 km away from an outbreak of a disease they were studying, it would trigger a full on investigation and full genetic comparison. Also they would be looking at any scientist as a vector. People live near where they work. Someone accidentally exposed could easily carry out daily activity in the vicinity while contagious.
Ok, and I asked you why that matters. And you haven’t said.
Well, but no, it doesn’t. For instance the CDC’s Enteric Diseases lab is in Atlanta, Georgia; it hosts the largest tissue collection of foodborne disease isolates in the world. If you were ever hospitalized for listeriosis in the United States, a sample of your disease isolate is probably located in a freezer there.
And also people periodically get food poisoning from Atlanta restaurants. About 12 a year, let’s say.
So every one of those food poisoning cases happens within 8 km of the largest food poisoning lab in the United States. Do you know how often they investigate whether the isolate leaked from the CDC lab?
Literally never. Not ever. Because there’s no reason to, because people getting a disease near where the disease is studied is not statistically significant in any way.
I’ve been thinking how to best respond to you at this point after looking at some of your response history. I can’t tell if you revel in pedantry or are just a troll. So I’ll give it one more go. I LITERALLY (since I know you like to poke holes in people using this word) state in the sentence you quote that the PROC has a vested interest in a scapegoat excuse of a wet market that they “embarassingly” (full air quotes) didn’t quite shut down vs. a leak from their only LVL 4 lab that relies on international support. Oh and the little matter of saving face by blaming a world wide pandemic on random chance vs. their own negligence.
If you are really asking why that matters, let me spell it out: One embarassment is not the same as the other. They are orders of magnitude apart. Not to mention my other comment that their destruction of evidence and refusal to investigate applies even more suspicion and logically undermines their prevailing explaination of the wet market. the PROC certainly has more embarassing things like Tofu Dregs that they also have been unable to stop due to corruption, and largely the international community doesn’t care, but feels bad for the populace who have their lives or life savings destroyed. Do you believe that wet markets which have been a known to the west for ages and China’s inability to stop a populace with a cultural connection to them is so embarassing as to “cover it all up” and do so pretty visibly on the international stage>? So much for embarassing when they have a tight lock on news that gets out! I don’t believe a rational person can say yes to that.
So the strawman argument it is. Let me quickly rip this to shreds:
Lysteria is a Biosafety Level 2 disease, endemic in that it shows up from time to time nationwide, and is unlikely to cause a ruckus. They do, however, profile it gentically when there’s an outbreak, so right there they do investigate. But this is still not equivalent and is a straw man of a disease that people would consider “common” and outside of the poor souls impacted, pretty uneventful…
If a novel virus like airborn Coronavirus, which is a Biosafety Level 3 agent, were to be found in patient zero 8km from a CDC facility studying it, it would trigger a political uproar and investigation. It might get buried with national security, but we all know what that means (much like the military grade anthrax that somehow showed up in envelopes in target politician mailboxes). So your fake equivalence isn’t holding up. If an outbreak of Lymes disease broke out near a CDC facility, it’s unlikely to trigger a panic or investigation. Dengue is LVL 2 containment and is rare enough currently in the US that it might cause concern and investigation. An oubreak of an uncommonly found disease near a CDC facility like Lassa is going to be of interest. We’ve investigated CDC leaks before and those didn’t even trigger events. So your “literally” wrong about “literally never”.
Oh, and here’s a “checkmate athiests!” on this for you (only joking - there’s no clear evidence yet, but my point is that the PROC is suspect): While politically charged, the house oersight on COVID Origins Hearing Wrap Up: Facts, Science, Evidence Point to a Wuhan Lab Leak is of interest. There’s a bunch of idiotic bullshit red vs. blue in there, but I’ll leave this gem of an outtake:
and the BBC has Covid: Top Chinese scientist says don’t rule out lab leak indicating the PROC investigated themselves and gave their own lab a thumbs up (without that Lab’s participation) and then kept those result secret.
In the absence of evidence, we can draw no complete conclusion. But leaking a pandemic causing virus from your only LVL 4 containment lab and saving face by destroying evidence, running a sham investigation that you ALSO cover up seem real problematic in the toxic brew of strict governmental control by PROC on journalists and information, plus a long history of cultural and government corruption. That’s my central thesis and nothing you have stated has refuted this possibility or how a wet market is more likely given both scenarios lack the same evidence. There you have it. I doubt I’m going go convince you that the whole thing is suspect, but any scientist should conclude that it’s a possibility there was a lab leak. I doubt you can conclusively prove that the wet market was the cause when there are thousands of them in china for years before and after the pandemic.