I don't believe there were doctors that were being silenced before the outbreak got severe. Again, it is my understanding that during that outbreak, in which a natural virus hopped species, there was heavy handed action and repression of information about how bad things were getting, but that was after things had gotten bad. The fact that has not happened suggests she isn't able to because she is no longer alive.Īs to more generic comparisons about behavior during a natural virus vs an accidentally released virus, I don't have anything stronger than conjecture, but think a comparison to SARS would shed some light. Huang Yan Ling making a statement and talking about that silly rumor would be the strongest way to squash that rumor. The expected behavior if she were the target of a rumor that she was patient zero would be to squash it immediately in the strongest way possible, whether or not it were true. The CCP has a huge incentive to have her come forward and make some kind of a statement that she's fine and that the outbreak has nothing to do with the lab/those are all rumors, similar to what the lead researcher Shi Zhengli did. Many suspected she was patient zero and died. The disappearance of Huang Yan Ling is significant because the Wuhan virology lab said she's fine and hasn't disappeared/is working elsewhere. It makes sense that they would have tried to control the virus quietly if it were a lab leak/wanted to keep it secret, and that they would engage in drastic measures to control it when that didn’t work. It’s possible there were different officials involved that changed motivations halfway through, but the lab leak hypothesis offers a more consistent explanation. If this were a natural disease and the motivations were to control it as quickly as possible, I’d expect early doctors to be painted as national heroes/propagandized positively very early, similarly to the portrayal of the people that built extra hospital spaces early on. If that were the motivations for arrest, I’d expect more reluctant and less heavy handed mitigation efforts.
You could argue they had motivation to arrest doctors talking about a natural infection if they thought they were spreading fear and disrupting lunar new year festivities, but going to locking down whole cities is about as fear inducing and disruptive as it gets. The transition from arresting doctors to locking down cities doesn’t make much sense otherwise. I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural. I lean towards the lab hypothesis due to China’s behavior early in the pandemic. Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow who regards lab escape as a conspiracy theory. “Yes, but your wording makes this sound unlikely - viruses are specialists at unusual events,” is the riposte of David L. You also see in the quote from the article: All this leaves this kind of article with a seemingly plausible scientific and ideological basis that is difficult for laymen and even scientific journalists to evaluate due to the complexity of the science involved, and not many scientists interested in spelling out why the reasoning might be flawed. The feeling I get is China doesn't really want to talk about it because it encourages ideologically motivated people to attack China, and serious scientists are mostly not convinced that this is a lab escape and so don't feel the need to discuss it.Īt the same time, China risks looking guilty because they are defensive and try to control the information. I agree that the meta analysis is inconclusive as it is not emphasising the science enough. I believe the lab origin theory is flawed based on the scientific reasoning, not the meta analysis. Furthermore, the reliance on pangolin coronavirus receptor binding domain (RBD) similarity to SARS-CoV-2 as evidence for natural zoonotic spillover is flawed, as pangolins are unlikely to play a role in SARS-CoV-2′s origin and recombination is not supported by recent analysis.Īt the same time, genomic analyses pointed out that SARS-CoV-2 exhibits multiple peculiar characteristics not found in other Sarbecoviruses.Ī novel multibasic furin cleavage site (FCS) confers numerous pathogenetically advantageous capabilities, the existence of which is difficult to explain though natural evolution. The low binding affinity of SARS-CoV-2 to bat ACE2 studied to date does not support Chiroptera as a direct zoonotic agent.
More than a year after the initial documented cases in Wuhan, the source of SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be identified, and the search for a direct or intermediate host in nature has been so far unsuccessful. There is an interesting peer reviewed paper published last month with analysis of existing facts about the origin of covid-19.
0 kommentar(er)
