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?


https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/health/huanan-animal-market-analysis-covid-19/index.html

 


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