Do you think covid started in a wet market?

[sleepyhorse]

.....Or accidentally released from a laboratory?

It’s more suspect than the Salisbury poisonings that are just down the road from Porton Down where they work on chemical weapons and deadly viruses too

It's not said to be a "problem"*, what it is, however, is a giant coincidence, seeing how the same type of disease broke out there. Big city, sure, but there are bigger in China. What that big city does have, though, is a great big BSL4 - the only one in China.

*it could be considered a problem, though, given their pathetic safety standards have been a concern of international authorities for years.

Rebelwithallthecause

Two prominent Russian dissidents murdered in a place of supposed safety isn't quite the same kettle of fish is it?

Were Assange and Snowdon poisoned on a park bench in Wuhan and I missed the headline?

The lab was studying corona viruses in bats because it was a known concern. Really, it's not a great surprise. Scientists have been worrying about a novel virus for years but were just not sure where the next evolution would come from, bats being one of the areas of concern.

That’s not at all what I was getting at picsinred

Just check the news articles on the investigations done after it

Ludo- that’s not the reason they were studying the virus in bats at all though?

Lab.. Dh thinks purposely from lab?

Rebelwithallthecause How would YOU know. Even if it was true you're just someone watching videos and such on social media. Unless you're claiming to have undercover operatives in China?

Those people making the videos. You get that they don't have agents there either nor do they have access to CIA files or whatever they are claiming this week.

It's all just people saying "just suppose".

Just check the news articles on the investigations done after it

If you're suggesting that the 2 Russian dissidents were poisoned by Brits from porton down ... I think I'll pass on researching that. It can go onto my urgent to do list, along with the grassy knoll and leprechauns.

Lab.. Dh thinks purposely from lab?

Y'all are fucking dumb but hey, Trump agrees with you. Actually I doubt he believes what he's saying, he's just trying to deflect from how terribly the US is doing right now.

SetYourselfOnFire

Y'all are fucking dumb

Clever. How could we possibly counter such a compelling argument?

Now do be careful with those matches dear.

I totally thought that it came from a live animal wet market, but an accidental lab release isn’t implausible. I think there have been safety concerns about that lab (one of only two in China that research LVL4 infectious disease).

It’s horrible to think there was an accidental release and officials ignored it, then tried to hide it, and then totally downplayed it.

We were caught totally unprepared because Chinese officials were not honest about what was going on and even now are only interested in deflection.

how terribly the US is doing right now

The US is not doing all that badly compared to much of Western Europe. But then, who knows why it left much of East Asia unscathed. There’s a lot we don’t know about COVID-19

Chinese officials were not honest about what was going on and even now are only interested in deflection
the hallmark of authoritarianism, reputation management is paramount, face must be saved at any and all costs

Someone preparing a bowl a pangolin soup.

Lab

Happened to read this today: "The latest analysis provides no evidence to support recent conspiracy theories asserting that the COVID-19 virus was deliberately created or released, intentionally or otherwise, from a lab. The authors reference earlier genetic analysis making clear that SARS-CoV-2 has natural origins, most likely having jumped into humans originally from bats."

allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/05/covid-pandemic-might-have-begun-as-early-as-october-experts-say/?fbclid=IwAR3GNogPMZ6PWjvyrOcdnN0K9tuUVjEMYE6Cglnq6xhTA15vgndfeGKmW_g

and this: "Early on in the pandemic, a preprint paper by Indian scientists seeded the idea that the novel coronavirus resembled HIV and may have therefore been developed in a lab. This sparked numerous conspiracy theories, many of which continue to circulate despite the fact that the offending paper was debunked and rapidly withdrawn."

allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/05/no-the-covid-19-virus-is-not-getting-more-contagious/

I'm going to assume it was a natural occurrence, unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary. Which there isn't.

Like coronaviruses generally it originated in bats. There was almost certainly an intermediate animal host. The signs are looking good for a multinational group of scientists to visit Wuhan in the near future to investigate the origin of the virus.

WHO are very keen for Trump to send any evidence he has. So far he has not done so.

I think it's more likely it was accidentally released from a lab. I do think it was here long before we were made aware of it though. I know of five people (none related) who had horrific flu, pneumonia, lung infections over the Christmas/ new year period. Of course it could just be coincidence

The bat thing is interesting. We seem to be particularly susceptible to viruses that have jumped from bats. We had bed bugs last year and I learned that bedbugs and batbugs are very closely related - almost indistinguishable except for behaviour. Bedbugs are basically batbugs that evolved to feed off humans. I wonder if it's because of our shared cave dwelling history.

A choice between the two: accidentally released.

((www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/24/global-report-wuhan-lab-says-its-bat-strains-were-not-covid-19-as-us-nears-10000-deaths))

The virology lab in Wuhan, the city at the heart of the outbreak, was working on three live strains of bat coronavirus, but none of them match the one that has caused the Covid-19 pandemic, its director has said.

Phew! That explains that then