Judging for what is heard, many people seem.Nothing is further from reality: hundreds of researchers continue to actively involved in the resolution of this unknown, analyzing data and publishing studies.
Unfortunately, it would be said that this issue only jumps to the headlines of the media when firewood is poured from the sensationalist hypotheses, such as the defense of an artificial origin of the virus that the controversial journalist of science Nicholas Wade launched a few months ago,Something that I already mentioned in his day (here and here), and that has been subsequently discredited by true experts.
By the way and as I also told Wade's main argument, the rare-according to him-presence of the cutting site per furina in the Sars-Cov-2 genome (explanation here and here), fell out of the existence of thisSequence in other related betacoronavirus, something that Wade seemed to ignore (or deliberately hide) but that was well known, because it was already published.
This alleged (false) exclusive peculiarity of the Covid virus was at the time described by the Molecular Virologist and Nobel Prize David Baltimore as a "steaming gun" that pointed to the artificial origin of the virus, which in turn diverse media wielded as aAuthority argument in favor of Wade's hypothesis.But the truth is that Baltimore has subsequently retired his words, recognizing Science magazine that he was not aware that this sequence is present in other betacoronavirus;Even a Nobel Prize can fall into a fake trap.
It should be clarified that there are no new conclusive data to clarify the origin of the virus.But there are new movements that in part reinforce what has already been defended by the vast majority of experts, and that only in a specific aspect provide a new script turn: after being almost banished, the idea that the outbreak could arise inA Wuhan market again gaining strength.
Huanan Market, in Wuhan.Skoleopgave1 / Wikipedia image.
Let's briefly remember the story of this idea.At first, a case cluster was detected that seemed to sign up for the Huanan Seafood Maris.But no investigation managed to find evidence to guarantee this hypothesis.Upon discovering that some of the earliest cases did not seem to have any relationship with the market, this theory was questioned, which was practically abandoned when it was disseminated that in Huanan no kind of living mammal was sold;Without being an essential requirement, it is more likely that a virus will jump to humans from living animals than from the meat sold for consumption.This was joined by the difficulty of isolating a cultivable coronavirus of environmental samples (such as walls or other surfaces), which left a blank space difficult to fill in a possible contagion chain started in Huanan.All this led to speculate that perhaps the market could amplify the outbreak, but that it was not its origin.
Recently, this has changed.In June, a group of researchers from China, the United Kingdom and Canada revealed in a study that between 2017 and 2019 were sold in Huanan and other Wuhan markets more than 47.000 animals, mostly living.Among the 38 species for sale were civetas, mapache dogs and minks, species that could have had a role in the appearance of the outbreak.The researchers added that animals were sold without any health control or hygiene measures, and that they were potential vectors of various zoonotic diseases (capable of jumping from animals to humans).On the other hand, the Mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) displaced to China found viral pollution in the markets.
These new data are not probative either, but they do come to fill out a vacuum, which has made, for various experts, the market hypothesis rises again on the list of possible explanations about the origin of the virus.
At the end of August, a new review in Science compiled all the data published to date on the origin of the virus, including the recent discovery of three new bats of bats in the Chinese province of Yunnan - more than 1 more than 1.500 kilometers of Wuhan - which are now the viruses more similar to that of the covid that are known.Although, like the Ratg13 virus, already known above, these new coronavirus are not considered ancestors of the SARS-COV-2, the finding shows that there is a remarkable diversity of related viruses.And that, since in the human population of that part of Yunnan, antibodies have been found that reveal the zoonotic jump of some of those viruses, it is more likely that one of them still unknown could travel the evolutionary path-until the SARS-COV-2– and geographical - until Wuhan - through these natural infections not detected that the hypothesis that a sample collected by researchers in Yunnan could accidentally infect a Wuhan laboratory worker.
"This scenario would be extremely unlikely compared to the scale of susceptible contacts between humans and animals that take place routinely in animal trade," the authors write."In summary, the most likely cause that the Covid-19 pandemic is the transmission of animal to human from Sarsr-Cov [Coronavirus related to SARS] associated with infected live animals".
Also for the same dates, another review of the origin of the virus published in Cell reaches similar conclusions: “There is no evidence that no early case had a connection with the Wuhan Virology Institute, in contrast to the clear epidemiological links with the markets with the marketsof Wuhan animals ".The authors recognize that "the possibility of a laboratory accident cannot be discardRepeated contacts between humans and animals that occur routinely in animal trade ”.
Also in the past days the joint report of the US intelligence agencies commissioned by the administration of Joe Biden has been published to issue an opinion that serves as the official guideline of the government of that country with respect to the origin of the virus.How could it be otherwise, since the available data are what are and are available to all experts, there is no firm and definitive verdict, but the conclusion reflects what the experts already indicated: the virus was not developedAs a biological weapon, nothing suggests or supports the idea that it was genetically manipulated in a laboratory, and the most likely hypothesis remains the natural origin of the virus and its accidental jump to humans.
In short, all of the above will not sound too novel to many, but it cannot be ignored that this repeated lack of news only corroborates, paraphrasing an appointment that the deceased former president of the Government Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo applied to politics, which also in scienceIt often happens that, what it seems, is.
But of course, all of the above does not close the case.In fact, the members of the WHO mission themselves have published a comment in Nature in which they need to start phase 2 of the investigation as soon as possible, since, they say, the available window is being closed to undertake certain studies,such as the layout of animals and humans inside and outside China;As time passes, many possible tests could disperse or disappear.
But as I have stressed here before, none of this guarantees that one day we get to know the origin of this virus, as we do not know that of many others.As Harvard Biologist William Hanage points out in Science, people want a story, but about the origin of Sars-Cov-2 there are and there will be several;Heading to the most likely against the most extravagant, even if these are more appetizing, is what differentiates the rigor of fantasy, the facts of the faks and the rational mind of the conspiracy.
Stored in: Medicine, Health