3mo ago

Covid origins: Genetic ghosts suggest pandemic started in market

www.bbc.com Covid origins: Genetic ghosts suggest pandemic started in market

A team of scientists say it is "beyond reasonable doubt" the Covid pandemic started with infected animals.

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.

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I know this is off topic, but - why didn't anyone tell me there's a species called a raccoon dog?!
https://a-z-animals.com/blog/what-are-raccoon-dogs/
- Look up some of the Japanese lore about Tanuki (the Japanese name for the raccoon dog). It involves magic, giant scrotums, and all sorts of delightful stuff.
  If you like anime, Studio Ghibli (famous for a lot of classics including Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and others) did a movie called Pom Poko, which is about tanuki. If you don't care for subtitles, the English dub is pretty good, and the voice cast stars a lot of well known (for the time) American actors.
  
  what the what
  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-tanuki-japan-s-trickster-god
  
  I will always upvote a Ghibli recommendation!
- You might know of the tanuki, which is specifically the Japanese raccoon dog.
  
  I didn't know about that one either!
- You were told. You just didn’t listen.
- Oy!

Wasn't this known already? Weren't there all kinds of discussions about shutting down wet markets because of this?
- There's a bunch of indications / conspiracy theories that it might have been a lab leak. Basically there's not really a way to know unless the Chinese government starts being more forthcoming with information.
  The main reason the conspiracy theory started is because the city where it started had a world renowned virus research facility in it.
  Of course, the reason the facility is there in the first place is because Wuhan province is a place where a lot of viruses originate naturally (in bat colonies), so it makes sense you research the viruses close to their natural reservoir.
  
  Wuhan province is a place where a lot of viruses originate naturally (in bat colonies)
  This is disingenuous. RaTG13 was sourced in Tongguan in Mojiang Hani Autonomous County 1800km from Wuhan.
- Yeah but the US media was too busy implying that China manufactured the virus in a bio lab.
  Funnily enough China still suffered because it failed to lock down early enough because the government tried to ignore and detain doctors in an effort to control the narrative that everything would be fine.
  The US suffered because they nuked their Pandemic emergency pla only like a few years before covid because Trump thought Spanish Fever wouldn't reincarnate to finish the job on its 100th anniversary lol.
  So it was easy to vaguely point at China instead of actually solving the problem.
  
  I don't know what US media you were consuming in 2020/21, but it was pretty much understood it came from something exotic in a wet market.
  Most of us didn't know what a wet market existed or what it was until COVID. There was some conspiracy shit that the right ate up, and some editorial and opinions on the idea, but the whole bioengineered super virus escaping a lab wasn't taken that seriously
- Wasn't this disproven already? Covid has been detected in human waste matter samples from Autumn 2019 in Italy.
  Overall, the results of this blind retesting of a selected set of samples indicate the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in some SMILE samples collected in the prepandemic period. The oldest samples found positive for IgM by both laboratories were collected on 10 October 2019 (Lombardy), 11 November 2019 (Lombardy) and 5 February 2020 (Lazio), the latter with neutralizing antibodies. Two additional samples collected on 17 December 2019 (Campania) and 28 January 2020 (Lombardy) tested as IgG positive by VisMederi and positive for IgG S1 and IgG S1+NP by Erasmus. Additional IgM positive cases could have been detected also by Erasmus by lowering the cut-off of the commercial IgM assay. The older among these putative additional IgM positive samples was collected on 3 September 2019 in the Veneto region, one of the first and mostly severely affected COVID-19 regions.
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8778320/
  
  I don't really understand what this is actually saying?
  Surely, if this were saying "covid started in italy" or "covid was around in 2019" that would rate more song and dance than a single obscure research paper?

Off topic, but “Genetic Ghosts” would be a sweet band name. I’d go see them.
- I thought the same. What kind of music do you reckon they'd play?
  
  They’d be the opposite of religious metal, probably be like some chipper disney sounding shit with dark realistic themes.

I'm not into conspiracy theories, but I find the confidence that is used in the defense of this origin just as Shakey as the lab leak theory.
The lab location and research done means there is a lot of potential incentive for the Chinese government, the lab and even researchers in the field to not have it be a lab leak... As this would potentially cause an entire (important) field of study and their methods be regulated into oblivion by poorly written knee jerk laws.
I'm fine with this as the accepted consensus on the subject, but I'll keep my reservations for whatever good those do me.
So how's the abolishing of wet markets going? And the reduction of antibiotics use in industrial scale farming?
- I still believe it isn't that far fetched that they disposed some kind of experiment/test from the labs on the market...
- The lab location and research done means there is a lot of potential incentive for the Chinese government, the lab and even researchers in the field to not have it be a lab leak...
  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.
- The lab that made COVID wasn't in China. It was in Kansas City.
  
  You’re thinking of the “Spanish” flu.

Eating animals causes pandemics from zoonotic diseases. More at 11.
- You don't even need to eat them; just being in close proximity to them and interacting with them is enough.
  On the other hands, cows, chickens, and humans came together to create a smallpox vaccine, so there's that at least.
  
  Yes, it’s just that eating animals has a distinct history of causing horrible pandemics in humans. See e.g. the 1918 H1N1 pandemic which killed tens of millions and was likely started by hogs or chickens farmed in rural Kansas, swine flu which killed hundreds of thousands and whose name speaks for itself, and COVID-19 which killed millions and is well-understood to have originated in a wet market.
  Besides all the other reasons that it's terrible, animal agriculture is a hotbed for transmitting zoonotic diseases to humans and combining existing human diseases with animal ones.
  
  And god forbid you should fuck them.
- Being near live animals is more dangerous.
  
  Would have far less human/animal face time if we didn't eat so much of them, don't you think?

As someone currently down with covid I thought that was state of knowledge long time ago.
- Conspiracy theorists have still been spreading the lab leak theory without proof for awhile now because China is the current scary boogeyman. I get that there was lab there studying these diseases, but guessing isn't how science works, and the wet markets have been known to be a possible source of diseases for a long time now by scientists. I remember warnings about this scenario coming up awhile ago.
  Lot of diseases come from China probably for similar reasons: it's crowded and close contacts with lots of animals. No one thought the 1956 flu could be a lab leak, or SARS, or H7N9, etc. People just have conspiracy theories about this one because it turned into the biggest pandemic of them all, which is just the roll of the dice of all the diseases coming out of there.
  
  People just have conspiracy theories about this one because it turned into the biggest pandemic of them all,
  No, it's because leaked gain of function research is a plausible scenario
  which is just the roll of the dice of all the diseases coming out of there.
  Maybe we should be more careful when manufacturing thousands of dice with sixes all over them.

including racoon dogs, civets and bamboo rats
No Bats? Oh maaaaaan
>
- I think they determined that the virus that spread to humans was bats that transferred to something in the market (aka intermediate hosts). That virus would have spread there, while technically the bats could have infected humans.
- Wuhan market didn't sell bats.
  Also, the only bats with a (96%) similar covid strain were in caves 1000 miles away.
  However, samples from those bats were stored at the wuhan institute of virology.
  
  Very first sentence quoted above. You don't even have to go to the article:
  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.
  No amount of evidence or scientific consensus can convince a conspiracy theorist...
  And yes, I know:
  Despite even highlighting one market stall as a hotspot of both animals and coronavirus, the study cannot provide definitive proof.
  Therefore lab leak, right?

Duh, it's so simple. The lab released infected animals to the wet market. All bases covered.
I'll take my research grant now.
(This is all said non-serious to be clear.)

I would love to see a picture of that ONE STALL that is thought to have been a hotbed. Whoever runs that stall must be quite a character, too. Golly it's fun to visit markets in new countries.
Unless... a plausible alternative to my imagination is that it looks like any other open air fresh meat stall, just with more exotic flesh... And if that's the case you can keep your photos.
But just in case. Anyone?
- I mean you’ve seen people with COVID by now; did they look much different?
  
  Huh? No, I want to see how chaotic that stall might be. I'm imagining stuff and species of all varieties.

Danny Phantom caused Covid?

I suppose its mere coincidence that patient zero was a scientist that was experimenting with covid and its potential to transmit to humans. Pure coincidence.
- In their Nazi lab on the dark side of the moon
- Yes, that's exactly what happened. Except it didn't and science isn't based on your feelings on an unsubstantiated anecdote and even IF it were real, real scientists with real brains are gonna figure this out. Not you.
  
  Except it didn't
  Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019
- Note, this evidence doesn't rule out the preliminary scenario of a scientist from the bioLab visiting the wet market and infecting/contaminating some of the animal's there.
  our study does not rule out human-to-animal transmission, as the sampling was carried out after the human infection within the market. Thus, the possibility of potential introduction of the virus to the market through infected humans, or cold-chain products, cannot yet be ruled out.

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