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In the last week, the US covid death count passed the one million mark, a round figure with a significance warped by appeal to the random draw of digits assigned to our species. But still, a big number. World-wide death rates are continuing to fall, dropping in March for the first time under the lowest death rates recorded since the first wave hit its first dip. With the development of surprisingly successful vaccines and effective treatments, combined with natural resistance, it’s a good time to refocus on accountability.
Opinion: As the pandemic exploded, a researcher saw the danger. China’s leaders kept silent.
By the Editorial Board
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And so it began. There’s no question the virus was already in circulation, but this was the first known confirmation that the “unusually vicious flu season” was due to something other than a variant of seasonal flu.
Surviving the Outbreak
By Russell J. Westergard
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And with that, we lost our last eyes on the ground at the epicenter of the eruption, leaving the leaders of a paranoid honor/shame culture to do that thing they do so well.
I take a baseline position informed by the last update posted by the DNI in August 2021.
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Two origins hypotheses are still supported by evidence, but not enough evidence to definitively declare for either one.
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Three preprints released in February add strength to the market hypothesis.
Do three new studies add up to proof of COVID-19’s origin in a Wuhan animal market?
Preprints unlikely to end debate over how SARS-CoV-2 began the pandemic, but some scientists say lab-leak hypothesis has taken a “blow”
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Yes, it’s moved the needle, but not enough to move me off what is still my working hypothesis: that SARS-CoV-2 is a variant of the bat-virus RAtg13 collected by WIV in 2013 and released into Wuhan in a spillover accident.
Opinion: As the pandemic exploded, a researcher saw the danger. China’s leaders kept silent.
By the Editorial Board
.
The morning of Dec. 26, 2019, began as usual at Vision Medicals in Guangzhou in southern China. This commercial laboratory, a private start-up barely a year and a half old, was also known by its Chinese name, Weiyuan Gene Technology. It specialized in next-generation sequencing, called mNGS, and offered applications that can identify most infectious agents — viruses, bacteria and others — in a single test.
A researcher browsed through the latest test results, as she did every day, before turning to her other work. She was proud of the laboratory’s metagenomic sequencing capabilities. Only a month before, her company played a key role in quickly detecting a plague outbreak in Beijing.
The previous day, her laboratory had received a bronchoalveolar lavage fluid sample from Wuhan, a city of 11 million people and a major transportation hub, where a 65-year-old man was hospitalized with a pneumonia-like respiratory ailment. When she checked the test results that morning, they indicated the man was infected by a virus similar to the one that causes SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which was first identified in China in 2002 and ultimately killed 774 people worldwide. The researcher was alarmed. She wrote to a co-worker on WeChat, a messaging service, at 9:28 a.m., saying the sample was brimming with something that looked like SARS.
A researcher browsed through the latest test results, as she did every day, before turning to her other work. She was proud of the laboratory’s metagenomic sequencing capabilities. Only a month before, her company played a key role in quickly detecting a plague outbreak in Beijing.
The previous day, her laboratory had received a bronchoalveolar lavage fluid sample from Wuhan, a city of 11 million people and a major transportation hub, where a 65-year-old man was hospitalized with a pneumonia-like respiratory ailment. When she checked the test results that morning, they indicated the man was infected by a virus similar to the one that causes SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which was first identified in China in 2002 and ultimately killed 774 people worldwide. The researcher was alarmed. She wrote to a co-worker on WeChat, a messaging service, at 9:28 a.m., saying the sample was brimming with something that looked like SARS.
And so it began. There’s no question the virus was already in circulation, but this was the first known confirmation that the “unusually vicious flu season” was due to something other than a variant of seasonal flu.
Surviving the Outbreak
By Russell J. Westergard
.
When the Chinese government announced on December 29th that the new and novel coronavirus (COVID-19) had been identified and traced to a live animal market near the U.S. consulate, it caught the team’s attention. Four hectic weeks later, ConGen Wuhan closed under ordered departure with the consulate team pulling off what some people involved have since described as a minor miracle. Consulate staff found themselves at the airport of a paralyzed city preparing to evacuate family members and other U.S. citizens from what would turn out to be ground zero of a deadly global pandemic.
And with that, we lost our last eyes on the ground at the epicenter of the eruption, leaving the leaders of a paranoid honor/shame culture to do that thing they do so well.
I take a baseline position informed by the last update posted by the DNI in August 2021.
.
The IC assesses that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019. In addition, the IC was able to reach broad agreement on several other key issues. We judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon. Most agencies also assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way. Finally, the IC assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged.
Two origins hypotheses are still supported by evidence, but not enough evidence to definitively declare for either one.
.
After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19. All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.
Three preprints released in February add strength to the market hypothesis.
Do three new studies add up to proof of COVID-19’s origin in a Wuhan animal market?
Preprints unlikely to end debate over how SARS-CoV-2 began the pandemic, but some scientists say lab-leak hypothesis has taken a “blow”
.
Three new studies offer one indisputable conclusion about the origin of SARS-CoV-2: Despite the passage of 2 years and the Chinese government’s lack of transparency, data that can shed light on the pandemic’s greatest mystery still exist. And although these new analyses don’t all reach the same conclusion for how COVID-19 was sparked, each undercuts the theory that the virus somehow escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, long a focus of suspicions.
The studies examine different aspects of the viral spread at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, the city where the first cases were detected. Two international efforts build the case that SARS-CoV-2 jumped to people from infected animals—a zoonotic leap—at the market, likely twice, at the end of 2019. A third, largely Chinese effort details early signs of the coronavirus in environmental and animal samples
The studies examine different aspects of the viral spread at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, the city where the first cases were detected. Two international efforts build the case that SARS-CoV-2 jumped to people from infected animals—a zoonotic leap—at the market, likely twice, at the end of 2019. A third, largely Chinese effort details early signs of the coronavirus in environmental and animal samples
Yes, it’s moved the needle, but not enough to move me off what is still my working hypothesis: that SARS-CoV-2 is a variant of the bat-virus RAtg13 collected by WIV in 2013 and released into Wuhan in a spillover accident.
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