On Saturday, international scientists published two major studies that, according to one participant, “demonstrated extremely clearly” that the source of the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic was a market in Wuhan, China, and not a Chinese government laboratory, as the theory says. advocated in the US by right-wing activists, columnists and politicians.
As The Guardian recalls, the question of where COVID-19 came from and how it spread has caused controversy.
According to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in two years the number of deaths in the world due to coronavirus is more than 5.9 million people, and the number of sick people is 433.7 million people. The same sources say more than 947,000 people have died from COVID in the US out of nearly 79 million coronavirus infections in that country.
Last August, U.S. intelligence efforts to seek clarity on the matter proved fruitless. — intelligence agencies were unable to either confirm or deny the version of the laboratory leak of the virus in Wuhan, China.
The New York Times first reported on the new research, which it says has not been published in any journal.
Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and co-author of both studies, told the newspaper: “If you look at all the evidence together, you see an unusually clear picture that the pandemic started in the Huanan Market.”
A summary of one study states: “The geographic grouping of the earliest known cases of COVID-19 and the proximity of positive environmental samples to live animal vendors suggest that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In an abstract to another study, the scientists argue: “Understanding the circumstances that lead to pandemics is critical to preventing them.”
One of those studies, none of which has been peer-reviewed or published in a professional journal, used spatial analysis to show that the earliest known cases of COVID-19, diagnosed in December 2019, were centered on the Wuhan market, CNN says. . The researchers also report that environmental samples that tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus were closely associated with live animal vendors.
Another study states that the two main viral lines were the result of at least two events in which the virus was transmitted to humans. The first transmission most likely occurred in late November or early December 2019, with another lineage likely introduced within weeks of the first event, the researchers said.
Experts have strongly condemned the theory of laboratory origin of the virus, saying that there is no evidence of such origin or leakage. Many of the researchers behind the new studies were also part of a review published last summer that said the pandemic was almost certainly due to an animal, likely in a wildlife market.
The new research takes this area of research “to the next level” and is the strongest evidence yet that the pandemic was animal (or zoonotic) in origin, said Michael Worobey, professor and head of ecology and evolutionary biology at the university. He called the results a defeat for the theory that the pandemic originated in the laboratory: “It no longer makes sense to imagine that it started in some other way.”
Michael Sparrow likened the pattern of the initial spread of the coronavirus to a firework display centered on a market. The explosion started at the end of 2019, but by January or February 2020, the picture has completely changed, which is a sign of the virus “leaking into the local community.”
The study notes that “cases of COVID-19 in December 2019 were unexpectedly geographically distributed near and focused on Huanan Market, whether they worked, visited, or were knowingly associated with someone who visited this market at the end of 2019. In addition, of those cases epidemiologically linked to the market, the vast majority were specifically related to the western part of the Huanan market, where most of the live mammal sellers were located.”
However, the question of China’s guilt or otherwise has become both diplomatically sensitive and highly politicized, especially in the US, The Guardian notes.
Most notably, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, has repeatedly clashed with Republican senators, including Rand Paul of Kentucky, a supporter of the lab-origin theory.
In July 2021, Rand Paul questioned Fauci about “acquisition of functionality” research into viruses in Chinese labs and whether US funding for such research may have contributed to the COVID pandemic.
Fauci responded, “Senator Paul, frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And I want to say it officially. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The two clashed again this January, with Fauci accusing Rand Paul of raising funds for his attacks and “stirring up lunatics” by fueling threats to him and his family.
The research, published on Saturday, was co-authored by scientists from the US, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the UK (Oxford, Edinburgh and Glasgow), Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium.