02-27-2023, 04:18 PM
Ca Bob wrote:
Thanks for explaining this. I saw a headline (on Yahoo or somewhere) and it didn't make a lot of sense. The biological evidence, including all the DNA sequence data, have gone against the lab leak hypothesis from early on.
Yes, quite.
I didn't read the WSJ article, but skimming the other blurbs gave me the impression that they said, well, there's a new Coronavirus, and a lab in the same town working on Coronaviruses. What are the chances they're not related?
Actually pretty good, based on the actual virological, genetic and epidemiological data. The lab was something like 7 miles away from the wet market initial cluster. SARS didn't originate from a lab, and hit China hard. I have no doubt China has a number of virology labs working on Coronaviruses now in their larger cities (like Wuhan) because of that. Regarding the difficulty in demonstrating an animal vector, for a long time we had no idea what the animal reservoir of SARS was. Twenty years later, we're still not certain - Bats? Civets? These things are not that easy.
I don't particularly trust the Chinese, but I trust science, and the science here favors an animal origin, just like SARS (which was probably at least as infectious as Covid, and deadlier in a case-fatality ratio, but was fortunately contained).