Where did Covid-19 come from? What You Know About Its Origin | World News

Why is the origin of the pandemic so controversial?

How Covid-19 was started was driven by the United States and other allies. China The cause of the outbreak is unknown.

US President Donald Trump believes in this idea Its intelligence suggests Virus may have escaped from Wuhan labHowever, US intelligence agencies have firmly refused to support it. The scientific community states that there is no current evidence for this claim.

This reports that the White House had pressured US intelligence agencies On assertion, Remember the pressure of the Bush administration to “stove pipe” information before the war in Iraq.

What’s wrong with the Chinese version?

The specific issue is that the story of official origins does not add up with regard to the initial epidemiology of the outbreak, especially with regard to the incidence of early cases that have not been associated with the Wuhan fisheries market once the outbreak began in Beijing. . If these people are not infected in the market, or via contacts infected in the market, how would critics explain these cases?

Wuhan Institute

Two laboratories studying Wuhan’s bat coronavirus are in the limelight. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is a biosecurity level 4 facility and is the best for containment. A Level 2 Wuhan Center for Disease Control, not far from the fish market, was collecting bat coronavirus specimens.

Several theories have been promoted. The first and most wild was that WIV scientists were engaged in experiments with bat coronaviruses, including so-called gene splicing, after which the virus escaped and infected humans. The second version is that sloppy biosecurity between laboratory staff and perhaps in the collection or disposal of animal specimens released a wild virus.

Is there any evidence that the virus has been manipulated?

The scientific consensus to reject the designed viruses is almost unanimous. so Letter to Nature in MarchThe team in California, led by professor of microbiology Christian Andersen, said, “The genetic data is definitely [Covid-19] Is not derived from the previously used viral backbone. That is, a spliced ​​section of another known virus.

Much more likely than they suggested, the virus appeared spontaneously and was made stronger by natural selection. “We propose two scenarios that can plausibly explain the origin of Sars-CoV-2. Natural selection in animal hosts before zoonosis. [animal to human] Transfer; Natural selection of humans after zoonosis. “

The World Health Organization’s animal-to-human infection specialist, Peter Ben Emberek and other experts, have also distorted gene sequence and mutation family tree data if the virus were manipulated – The so-called “reticulation” effect.

In a statement to the Guardian, James Leduc, head of the Galveston National Laboratory in the United States, is the largest active biocontainment facility on a US academic campus pouring cold water.

“Because of its high similarity to other known bat-associated coronaviruses, there is convincing evidence that the new virus was almost certainly naturally derived, not a result of deliberate genetic engineering,” he said. It was

What if a wild sample was accidentally leaked due to inadequate laboratory safety measures?

The “evidence” provided is at best very situational, but the most noticeable is the accidental release of wild samples.

The Washington Post reported concerns about weak security and control from U.S. embassy officials who visited WIV several times in 2018, but there is no conclusive evidence that the lab is the source. Acknowledged the paper.

But Ruduk paints another picture of the WIV. “Before we started operations in 2017, we visited and visited the new BSL4 laboratory in Wuhan, which is of the same quality and safety measures as those currently operating in the US or Europe.”

He also described his encounter with WIV’s Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who led the study of bat coronaviruses, and in 2003 discovered a link between bats and the Sars virus that caused disease worldwide, I described her as “fully engaged, very open and transparent,” about her work, and I want to work with her. “

Epidemiology Maureen Miller, who worked with Shi as part of a US-funded virus research program, tuned in to Le Duc’s assessment. She said She believed that the laboratory escape theory was “absolute conspiracy theory” I called Shi “great”.

Problems with timeline and map of virus spread

Experts speaking to the Guardian revealed that the understanding of the origin of the virus remained tentative, but added that the current state of knowledge of the initial spread also caused problems in the laboratory escape theory. It was.

When Cambridge geneticist Peter Forster compared the sequences of viral genomes collected early in the outbreak of China (later worldwide), he identified three dominant strains.

In the early stages of the outbreak, it seems that the two stocks were circulating almost simultaneously. It is A stock and B stock. The C variant later developed from strain B.

However, a surprising finding is that the version with the closest genetic similarity to the bat coronavirus is not the earliest epidemic version in Wuhan, central China, but is associated with earlier cases scattered in southern Guangdong. Was there.

Forster explained that between December 24, 2019 and January 17, 2020, three of Wuhan’s 23 cases were type A and the rest were type B. However, in Guangdong patients, 5 out of 9 cases are type A viruses.

“Even though the numbers are very low, the early genomic frequencies by January 17 do not favor Wuhan as an origin over other parts of China. For example, nine Guangdong / Shenzhen type A patients. 5 of them “

In other words, it is not even certain that Wuhan needs to be the place where the virus first appeared.

If you have no evidence of engineering and its origins are not so controversial yet, why are you talking about Wuhan Institute theory?

The pandemic exacerbated the existing geopolitical struggle and caused false information wars in the United States, China, Russia and others.

Journalists and scientists, perhaps as part of this campaign, are interested in pushing contextual evidence related to the origin of the virus, distracting from the fact that few governments are taking a legitimate response. It targets people who are interested in it.

What does this mean?

The current state of knowledge about coronaviruses and their origins suggests that the most likely explanations remain the most mundane. Like other earlier coronaviruses, it simply spreads to humans through natural events and is the starting point for many of the scientific community, including the World Health Organization.

Further testing in China within the next few months may eventually reveal the cause of the outbreak. But for now it’s too early.