Politicians and some government agencies continue to argue that the covid-19 pandemic began with a leak from the National Biosafety Laboratory in Wuhan, even as scientists and public officials say evidence indicates it arises naturally from animals in a food market in China.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the U. S. Department of Energy is in the U. S. Department of Energy. The U. S. Department of Health assessed with “low confidence” that the covid pandemic originated from a lab leak, reviving the debate over the origins of the coronavirus (it’s still unclear what the Department of Energy thinks of a lab leak). es).
In 2017, the National Intelligence Community stated that the term “low trust” indicates that “the reliability of resources is questionable” or that “the credibility or plausibility of the data is uncertain. “
While the Federal Bureau of Investigation agrees with the DOE that a lab leak is the most likely cause of the pandemic, they are a minority: CNN reports that peak intelligence agencies claim that the origins of Covid occurred naturally, or that there isn’t enough evidence to make a decision.
China denied the claims and accused the United States of spreading lies. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a news briefing Monday that some sides “avoid defaming China and avoid politicizing origin tracing. “
A “lab leak” causing the covid pandemic has long been a favorite theory of politicians like then-President Donald Trump, who said in 2021 that a lab leak theory “seems to make sense,” even as scientists continue to locate more evidence about it. Herbal origins of the disease
The theory that covid spread from a lab leak has been continually challenged by clinical experts, such as the authors of research published in Nature Medicine, who stated that they “do not believe that any kind of laboratory-based situation is plausible. “
The first known cases of covid were reported in Wuhan in December 2019, and since then the disease has claimed the lives of more than 6. 8 million people, with the United States accounting for about one million of those deaths.
“The pandemic began with at least two zoonotic consequences of animals sold at Huanan Market” in Wuhan, China, said Dr. Stuart. Angela Rasmussen, senior virologist and co-author of several studies on the origins of covid-19. Twitter. ” It is not a laboratory, nor a cave, nor a dentist’s office. That is not our opinion. These are original, evidence-based studies that have withstood rigorous peer review.
The theory that the coronavirus spread from a leak in a Chinese laboratory has been suggested by several public figures, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who claimed without evidence that the outbreak occurred due to studies backed by the National Institutes of Health. about the coronavirus. This study, called gain-of-function, is a virological approach that involves conversion of virus genotypes and their resulting phenotypes, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. In 2021, the Intercept received documents revealing that EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based non-profit organization, used cash grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (NIAID) of the NIH to fund gain-of-function studies through the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Wuhan University. Animal experimentation center. These studies deliberately made the viruses studied more transmissible so that scientists and researchers could better perceive them (Dr. Anthony Fauci, then director of NIAID, told Congress in May 2021 that the NIH “doesn’t ever do functional studies on the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “) The fear that this study is the result of the spread of the Covid pandemic. However, several scientists showed the Intercept that the experiment cannot be directly linked to the pandemic and that none of the viruses studied were similar enough to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark. ) was one of the first high-profile figures to promote the lab-sourced pandemic, either accidentally or intentionally. Although he later claimed that he had no evidence to support this theory, Cotton doubted that Covid had spread from an animal “wet market” in Wuhan that sells meat, poultry and beef. fish and produce, noting that Wuhan is also home to a center for biological studies. The Wuhan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has conducted extensive studies on the viruses discovered in the bat caves, the firm has not revealed which ones the viruses express. A video of a Wuhan team exploring a cave catching bats and collecting samples for new diseases and vaccines circulated around the time the first patients to contract the novel coronavirus were hospitalized. Shi Zhengli (also known as “bat woman”), a professor at the Wuhan Institute, published a 2021 study indicating that her team had discovered 8 strains of coronavirus in bats in 2015. These findings led many to conclude that the pandemic was triggered . through a laboratory leak. The World Health Organization published a report in 2021 that attributes the spread of the coronavirus to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. The report also called the theory that a laboratory leak was the cause of the pandemic a “less likely hypothesis. ” According to a separate WHO report, the Wuhan CDC denied any garage or laboratory activity with bat viruses before the pandemic.
A pair of 2022 studies published in Science tested the possibility that the covid pandemic emerged from a rainy market in China. One of the studies connected the first known cases of Covid to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. I knew of a segment of the market place place place place where live wild animal vendors congregated and where environmental samples positive for the virus were discovered. And 66% of the 41 first hospitalized patients with unknown pneumonia (later proven to be novel coronavirus infections) in January 2020 had direct contact with Marketplaceplace. Several animal species (such as mink, wild boar, and red fox) sold on the marketplace were “susceptible to SARS-related coronaviruses,” leading researchers to conclude that the Covid pandemic was zoonotic in origin (what which means the virus has spread from animals to humans). The moment study linked the spread of two other covid variants to two other people who visited the market and spread the virus in their respective communities. A separate study published in Nature found that commercial animals were kept in substandard conditions and culled using illegal methods. These situations offer the best breeding ground for viruses like the coronavirus to become infected.
In particular, this most recent study debunked the theory that bats were the cause of the pandemic because they were commercialized.
The U. S. government The U. S. is divided over Covid Lab’s leak theory: This is where the company stands (Forbes)
Most likely, the coronavirus has made the impression on the Wuhan market, according to new studies (Forbes)
China reacts to lab leak report: says US ‘politicizes’ origins of Covid (Forbes)
Chronology: How the origin story of the Covid lab leak went from ‘conspiracy theory’ to debate (Forbes)
Here’s What Dr. Fauci Had to Say About the Origins of Covid and the Lab Leak (Forbes)
A timeline of the Wuhan COVID-19 lab origin theory (Forbes)
Covid most likely comes from lab leak, Energy Department says, but Biden says no ‘definitive answer’ (Forbes)
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