WAPO: Covid started in open market, not lab

[lindysalsagal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/evidence-covid-origin-spillover/

Opinion Available evidence still points to covid originating from spillover
By Angela Rasmussen and Saskia Popescu
March 7, 2023 at 4:19 p.m. EST

Angela Rasmussen is a virologist and principal research scientist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. Saskia Popescu is an infectious-disease epidemiologist and assistant professor of biodefense at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

The news last week that the Energy Department had concluded with “low confidence” that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a “lab leak” caused FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to remind Fox News viewers that his agency reached the same conclusion about the coronavirus in 2021.

No new evidence is available for public scrutiny. It is impossible to evaluate the Energy Department’s claims. Yet they have been repeated in many quarters as if they were proof of a lab origin — a belief that fuels demands to curtail work on dangerous infectious agents.

To be clear, all the evidence available for scrutiny points to the pandemic originating from transmission from live animals to humans — zoonotic spillover — at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.

[PSPS]

1. We knew this three years ago. This latest charade is just the echo of trumpers embedded in agencies.

[MichMan]

2. Energy Sec. Granholm ?

Her department is one of those you are referring to.

[spanone]

3. Well I just heard a republican on CNN lying her ass off about it...they held hearings on this today.

[MichMan]

4. China agrees

[Celerity]

10. Yes, and the title of the OP is misleading, as the WaPo Ed board did not author the opinion article

Bottom line is, we do not know with certainty the actual origin.

Also, I still see people stating on other threads in the past here that there was no gain of function work in regards to coronaviruses going on at the lab.

That is simply not true:

In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan

A spokesman for Dr. Fauci says he has been “entirely truthful,” but a new letter belatedly acknowledging the National Institutes of Health’s support for virus-enhancing research adds more heat to the ongoing debate over whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/nih-admits-funding-risky-virus-research-in-wuhan

snip

On Wednesday, the NIH sent a letter to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that acknowledged two facts. One was that EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City–based nonprofit that partners with far-flung laboratories to research and prevent the outbreak of emerging diseases, did indeed enhance a bat coronavirus to become potentially more infectious to humans, which the NIH letter described as an “unexpected result” of the research it funded that was carried out in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second was that EcoHealth Alliance violated the terms of its grant conditions stipulating that it had to report if its research increased the viral growth of a pathogen by tenfold.

The NIH based these disclosures on a research progress report that EcoHealth Alliance sent to the agency in August, roughly two years after it was supposed to. An NIH spokesperson told Vanity Fair that Dr. Fauci was “entirely truthful in his statements to Congress,” and that he did not have the progress report that detailed the controversial research at the time he testified in July. But EcoHealth Alliance appeared to contradict that claim, and said in a statement: “These data were reported as soon as we were made aware, in our year four report in April 2018.”

snip

Early last month, The Intercept published more than 900 pages of documents it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the NIH, relating to EcoHealth Alliance’s grant research. But there was one document missing, a fifth and final progress report that EcoHealth Alliance had been required to submit at the end of its grant period in 2019.

In its letter Wednesday, NIH included that missing progress report, which was dated August 2021. That report described a “limited experiment,” as the NIH letter phrased it, in which laboratory mice infected with an altered virus became “sicker than those infected with” a naturally occurring one.

snip

[Martin68]

5. I believe the bottom line is that nobody knows for sure. The market theory seems more probable, but

the lab leak is still possible, given what we know. China could probably have helped clear this up, but I wonder if it isn't too late at this point. Unless China has data that they are withholding. If it was a lab leak, then China would certainly know about it, but would want to cover it up. The fact that China has never let an international team of scientists investigate the origin on site seems suspicious - but then China might suspect that such a study would be influenced by the ideology and politics of the scientists involved, who could skew the results against China.

[leftyladyfrommo]

14. I don't think we will ever know. It's just such a huge

coincidence that it all started right where that lab is. I don't really believe in coincidental things.

[Martin68]

15. Well, it also started where there's a huge open air market that sells wildlife for food.

Wuhan is the epicenter, but ground zero is still unknown.

[Johonny]

6. But this possibility gives John Stewart and Bill Maher the sads

They like to brag about people that agree with them and their jumping the evidence to a conclusion, but funny enough ignore all the counter evidence.

Meanwhile, it is a subject likely to be debated and researched for a while longer. And an open mind is the best approach.

[blue neen]

8. It's a shame you don't like Jon Stewart.

I think he's incredibly smart and effective.

[Johonny]

11. What makes you think I don't like him

I just note, he got the sads when people thought he was/ still is jumping the gun. And quick to brag the new report, although even its conclusion was for less certain than Jon wants it to read.

I think it's okay to disagree with Bill or Jon without totally hating the dudes.

[blue neen]

12. Fair enough.

[Initech]

7. I remember that from back in 2020. Didn't the WHO say that place was a hotbed for zoonotic viruses?

If so then shut that shit down immediately, though it may be too late.

[former9thward]

9. The WaPost is pissed no one has leaked information the intelligence agencies have.

Their quote: To be clear, all the evidence available for scrutiny Yes, all the evidence THEY have which is not what intelligence agencies and the FBI have seen. They have access to communications between Chinese leaders and public health authorities. Most don't have this information because the Chinese have lied since day one about the origins of the virus. They have denied access to their personnel or labs to ANY outside investigators. The WaPost is approaching this as if it was a graduate level public health seminar. Its not. It came from the lab is what any common sense would find.

[Xolodno]

13. Well, China did temporarily ban...

...wet markets after it made COVID public. And now has tighter restrictions on wildlife being sold in them.


With that said, I find it very curious that Russia sealed its border with China shortly before they announced the discovery of the virus. And for awhile, Russia didn't have many cases, that all changed once Covid hit Europe, they couldn't effectively seal up their contacts with that many nations (of course, now they can).

[roamer65]

16. I'd bet dollars to donuts a lab worker was selling lab animals into the wet market.

Just a hunch and an opinion.

[Behind the Aegis]

17. LOL!

So, I am NOT the only one who thought that!

[roamer65]

18. Nope, you are not.

[tinrobot]

19. Does it really matter how it started?

I'm more upset that it was turned into a political issue that cost a few hundred thousand people their lives.