Submitted by MistWeaver80 t3_zdakan in science
Reply to comment by Baud_Olofsson in Scientists believe bats first transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans in December 2019, and while the virus has since evolved into several variants such as delta and omicron, a new study indicates the virus is still highly transmissible between mammals. by MistWeaver80
Obviously the question was posed with a conspiratorial theme in mind, but to be fair, "virologists" do not agree on a common explanation for Covid's existence. If it originated from Wuhan wet markets, we would be able to detect the presence of older variants within market animals, and to my knowledge, none have been found.
I am desperately trying to not be conspiratorial, but here are the facts: A massive outbreak of a bat-based virus occurred in a large Chinese city far away from where any native bat populations could have harbored the virus. There is also zero concrete evidence of the virus jumping from any species to another, all we got was a virus that was off-the-bat good at infecting humans, which is not normal when compared to literally every outbreak in human history.
While not evidence, but instead a massive red flag, is the fact that this outbreak, of a bat-based virus, happened in THE city with an extremely well funded VIROLOGY LAB THAT STUDIES BAT VIRUSES. And, iirc, right after the outbreak occurred, there was news spreading around of a lot of discord and chaos around the Wuhan lab prior to the outbreak. Not evidence, just... context.
I don't care about the politics of this, but, due to the varying accounts of what happened on both sides, combined with the sheer lack of concrete evidence of how Covid came to be, combined with the fact that the leak originated from an area with an extremely advanced virology lab, I don't think its very conspiratorial to think that it was, to some degree, man-made.
Its really difficult to disconnect standpoints on these issues from political motivations, but all things considered, the way that I have seen the evidence explained, I really don't see how anybody can disbelieve that it was made in a lab, besides from taking politician's assurance at face value. Please don't cite "the virologists said so", because no, only one side's virologists are saying that, we really don't know what happened for sure and there is simply a lack of evidence surrounding what happened.
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tldr: We don't know what happened, stop acting like we do.
There were also images where said lab in Wuhan had an expedition to bat caves to catch bats for experiments. Based on the photos they were handling the bats bare-handed. So accidental transmission and spread by a lab worker is a very likely option to consider.
All the "evidence" for it being created in a lab is just a bunch of "doesn't it sound suspicious that...".
> I am desperately trying to not be conspiratorial, but here are the facts: A massive outbreak of a bat-based virus occurred in a large Chinese city far away from where any native bat populations could have harbored the virus.
The bats don't live in the city, and it doesn't really matter where they live, as they're caught and sold in a wet market, which is the perfect breeding ground for spillover events. Epidemiologists and virologists have warned China about this again and again, saying that it's only a matter of time before we have another SARS.
> There is also zero concrete evidence of the virus jumping from any species to another, all we got was a virus that was off-the-bat good at infecting humans, which is not normal when compared to literally every outbreak in human history.
What? There are plenty of viruses that jump straight from bat to human (rabies, Marburg, Ebola, Nipah). Then others that are great at killing us after going through a second species (SARS, MERS, Hendra). And again: wet markets. They couldn't be better designed to create the conditions for this to occur.
And I would like to remind you that it took 14 years to conclusively identify where SARS originated.
There is nothing special about SARS-CoV-2. Really, the only strange thing about COVID-19 is that it took this long for it to happen again.
If the origin of the outbreak was the wet markets from infected imported bats, we would be able to detect earlier versions of the virus within market animals that should have spread around prior to it jumping to humans. To my knowledge, there is just no evidence of its history in the markets. Yes, viruses can jump species, but it takes time and we should be able to see its history. The lack of information and evidence here is apparently enough for a lot of virologists to doubt Covid's origins.
I don't think that virologists would be debating the origins of Covid as heavily as they are if the situation was really as clear and simple as you make it out to be. If you claim to have an understanding, you may be coming to that conclusion with valid points, but you are ignoring many factors and the arguments surrounding them. We don't know what happened.
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