COVID ORIGINSNew Genetic Study Finds SARS-CoV-2 Originated in Wildlife Trade
There is no scientific consensus on the origins of COVID, but the Trump administration is treating the speculative lab leak theory as a given. The administration claims that the lab leak theory has been “confirmed,” even though it is no more than a mere conjecture. In fact, the most recent study, published Wednesday, lends support to the zoonotic spillover theory.
Pandora Reportwrites:
In a study published Wednesday (“The Recency and Geographical Origins of the Bat Viruses Ancestral to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2“), researchers compared the evolution of SARS with that of COVID-19 nearly two decades later. They analyzed the genomes of both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, in addition to nearly 250 related coronaviruses in bats and other mammals. They determined that fragments of the human SARS-CoVs share very recent common ancestors with bat viruses, that both SARS-CoV-1-like and SARS-CoV-2-like viruses have circulated in Asia for millennia, that recent ancestors of human SARS-CoV-s likely circulated in western China and northern Laos, and that these ancestors traveled unexpectedly fast to reach sites of human emergence. Importantly, the authors note that, “We find that the direct ancestors of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are unlikely to have reached their respective sites of emergence via dispersal in the bat reservoir alone, supporting interactions with intermediate hosts through wildlife trade playing a role in zoonotic spillover.”
This research comes at a time when the current administration is treating the lab leak theory like a given. Last month, the White House created a new webpage called “Lab Leak: The True Origin of Covid 19” which is now the landing page for sites once dedicated to providing information about COVID-19 and access to COVID-19 test kits. The White House further described the lab leak theory as “confirmed” last Friday, using it as a justification to cut $18 billion to NIH in response to what it described as NIH’s “inability to prove that its grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology were not complicit in such a possible leak.”
Further Reading:
“Tulsi Gabbard is Out to Prove Covid Came from a Lab,”Erin Schumaker,Politico
This article is published courtesy of the Pandora Report.
