SARS-CoV-2 and the Wuhan wet market
Endless online vitriol has been spilt promoting the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic was somehow either (a) an engineered pathogen or (b) a virus that escaped from a research facility. While those allegations served the interests of the Trump Administration, the actual, you know, scientific data supporting them was non-existant.
Now, years later, the sorts of experiments that could have weighed in support of natural origins of the pandemic, the parsimonious conclusion, have been done:
“After an in-depth analysis of the genetic material from hundreds of swabs taken from the walls, floors, machines and drains inside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China — a site that’s been described as an epicenter of early spread of Covid-19 — scientists say they now know exactly which species of animals were in the same area where investigators also found the most positive samples the virus that causes Covid-19.
“Species present in the areas where the highest numbers of SARS-CoV2 samples were found include raccoon dog, hoary bamboo rat, dog, European rabbit, Amur hedgehog, Malayan porcupine, Reeves’s muntjac, Himalayan marmot, and masked palm civet.
“The new findings add to strong, but circumstantial evidence that the SARS-CoV2 virus jumped from infected animals to humans and that the market was a central site of early spread.”
Yes, circumstantial. There will never be a smoking gun, absolute “proof.” Science doesn’t deal in proof, it deals in the weight of evidence. The weight of evidence continues to support a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2.
That shouldn’t reassure you, that should scare you. The next pandemic is lurking. Instead of exploiting it for political gain, let’s protect human lives, m’kay?
Wuhan wet market and COVID-19
Unsubstantial!
There were humans all over that “wet market”!
There exists no flesh samples of any of these animals that containt any CoV 19 strain collected before there was human spread.
Extremely circumstantial.
@paddy,
“There were humans all over that “wet market!”
Exactly! That’s *how* it jumped from animals to humans. Humans were exposed to SARS-CoV-2 in the wet market. Had there been no humans at the wet market, it would have stayed in the well-known animal vectors.
Circumstantial? Sure. Parsimonious? You bet.
Joel, sorry, but as written this is really weak. It was established at the outset that this market dealt with live, undomesticated species. To say swabs confirming what has been known for years is even circumstantial evidence feels a significant overstatement. I’d expected that there were plenty of human returns on those swabs. The origin species could easily have been human at this very busy and crowded market. If you want to take think of parsimonious explanations, then take a stab at Fauci’s and Collins’s very early and urgent efforts to push a natural source. My parsimonious “hunch”? They were well aware of coronavirus programs at the lab and were deeply worried (panicked, I’d offer) that it could have come from there. Could be wrong of course, but those guys didn’t wait on seeing these swabs is evident.
@Eric,
Sorry, but to this molecular biologist, as written your comment seems really weak. To show that the virus could be documented from swabs at the market is a smoking gun. Given what we know about the ecology of SARS, the most logical inference is that it was (a) at the wet market and (b) the source. As opposed to the fake news that it was released from a laboratory. You could be wrong, of course, and as a scientist, I’d say you are. The recent swab data further supports that inference.
How many viruses thawing out of the thawing tundra that haven’t seen a human since before we were human are there? Very early in the covid saga I wrote that I didn’t think this one (SARS2-Covid19) was the one to kill us all, that we could learn from it
I could be wrong …