You are correct to call me on that one: I was misremembering. It was some other scenario that was ruled out by the reconstructed time to the most recent common ancestor – the date of the illnesses at the lab (assuming they occurred) would have be consistent with being early covid cases.
1 Like
Jay, my posting a link to a news report that may be of interest to others does not indicate, much less confirm, what I believe.
I encourage you to do better, as your assertion is both wrong and rude.
Have a blessed Easter.
I can’t tell if this is real or humor.
1 Like
Really?
"Yes, the President says a lot of crazy things.
But even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then."
– @03Cobra
As @glipsnort and @pevaquark state, there’s nothing new on the webpage, and most of it is irrelevant.
“The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.”
Who are they trying to fool with this one?
" Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans . This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events."
That’s just wrong. There were two lineages of the virus circulating among the workers at the wet market which indicates at least 2 introductions. See article below.
" Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab , which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering and organism supercharging) at inadequate biosafety levels."
That’s not evidence the virus came from the lab.
" Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market."
People were sick with COVID-like symptoms every winter since time immemorial.
" By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced . But it hasn’t*.*"
But it has surfaced.
1 Like
I thought about replying in this vein, but I took the opposite tack – partly because I don’t have a lot of confidence in the conclusion that there were two introductions (we’re talking about only 2 mutations, IIRC), but mostly because, regardless of the actual number of introductions, the argument is fundamentally wrong. I know of no rule that pandemics are supposed to start with multiple spillover events; I think someone just made it up.
2 Likes
Here’s a review of the evidence.
The origins of SARS-CoV-2: A critical review
Summary
Since the first reports of a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronavirus in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, there has been intense interest in understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in the human population. Recent debate has coalesced around two competing ideas: a “laboratory escape” scenario and zoonotic emergence. Here, we critically review the current scientific evidence that may help clarify the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
This administration is making stuff up all the time. They’re also firing people critical to preventing the next pandemic. One of the co-authors of the above review, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, recently posted about our lack of preparedness at CDC and NIH. A potential H5N1 pandemic would be worse than COVID, killing six times as many people, especially children (unlike COVID).
1 Like
Among many other things, they’ve shut down meetings of the SPHERES consortium (Sequencing for Public Health Emergency Response, Epidemiology and Surveillance), which originated as a place to exchange information about SARS-CoV-2 sequencing and surveillance, but which also connected most of the public health people and researchers who respond to outbreaks.