zlacker

>>ruarai+(OP)
This article is written by a journalist who is clearly knowledgeable about safety practices and mistakes in US labs, but does not consider the extensive knowledge we have about the sequence of SARS-COV2. The preponderance of evidence supports a natural origin of the virus.

This is no way exonerates the Wuhan government from possible culpability—indeed government officials did deliberately suppress information—but this investigative opinion doesn’t pass scientific muster. Misinformation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

>>tbenst+Zu1
I think you are confusing “lab leak” with “lab manufactured.”

>>garmai+rv1
Why would it be more feasible this virus is leaked from the lab other than some wild animals from the market itself?

Either can be equally believable yet impossible to prove.

>>karmas+7w1
There are cases in Wuhan which predate the wet market cluster. That appears to have been a super spreading event but not the origin.

The bats this disease come from we’re not being sold in the market at this time. They’re out of season. So already the theory is assuming a multi-animal hop (some other wild animal got in contact with a bat and got infected, then captured and moved a thousand kilometers to the wet market and killed).

Meanwhile the bio lab in Wuhan received a sample of infectious coronavirus just months prior to the earliest known case. Within a few weeks of the outbreak while China was still downplaying the disease, the central government passed a rushed emergency safety rules update for these labs, starts pushing back on requests for access, and using state media to throw out a bunch of crazy theories about external origin.

Anyone with half a brain can connect the dots.

>>garmai+Kz1
The open question is: are there cases even before those, and outside Wuhan?

>>8note+kO1
We already knew by summer there were cases going back to October 19 in Italy, from saved sewage samples

Recently (3 days ago)

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210318185328.h...

>>coder4+Cr2
Note that when the WHO team asked for similar wastewater samples from China, they were told the samples had been discarded:

> They had sought wastewater samples from central China to check if the virus could be detected in sewage from late 2019, but were told those had been discarded, per standard policy, after a month, said Dr. Koopmans.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-refuses-to-give-who-raw-d...

So while it's very likely that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Italy back in October, it's entirely possible (and likely, I believe) that it was circulating yet earlier in Wuhan; but the evidence to confirm or refute was destroyed.

>>triple+545
And I'm replying to myself to note that the Italian study has also received an expression of concern. So "very likely" may be an overstatement, and if anything that further reinforces my point (that so far, there's no reason to believe SARS-CoV-2 was spreading outside Wuhan before it spread inside).

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/03/24/paper-claiming-presen...