5 ms·

What makes you think it's less probable than natural origins? The wet market has probably been there for 1,000 years and this hasn't happened. Compared to the v

What makes you think it's less probable than natural origins? The wet market has probably been there for 1,000 years and this hasn't happened. Compared to the virus appearing in one of 3 labs in the world that would be studying it.

seventytwo 5y ago
Well, we know for a fact that a >96% similar virus was found to infect the miners naturally in 2006… how hard is it to imagine a few more tweaks since then? We’ve already had many mutations of COVID occur in the past year. Is it crazy to think virus which infected the miners couldn’t have mutated into what we know as COVID?
- SiempreViernes 5y ago
  No, there is no public evidence that the miners were infected by the virus. The common story is the WIV sent people there to check if it was a virus. From there it diverges to the WIV saying "turns out it was a fungus" and then an obscure masters thesis about the cases that just assumes it was a virus.
ridaj 5y ago
The Wuhan wet market episode, in retrospect, was almost certainly a superspreading event rather than a patient zero situation. The virus's effects are so variable from person to person (lots of asymptomatic carriers, people who just get a little cold, symptoms undistinguishable from the flu) that it was almost certainly already circulating in Wuhan unnoticed, until it became big enough to be hard not to notice. Consider for example what happened in the US, in Washington state at the beginning of the pandemic. The first local community transmissions were detected weeks after they had already started happening, even though there was already a relatively high degree of alertness. Without testing, it wouldn't have been detected at all until a similar superspreading event finally took place. The very fact that miners got sick a few years ago makes it also sound likely, based on Wuhan's history and based on the virus's characteristics, that bat-to-human transmission took place in similar circumstances as the miners' a few weeks or months before the Wuhan wet market event, had some low-key human-to-human transmission simmering in the community which people wrote off as the flu (at worse), until that one superspreading event.
- 40four 5y ago
  Guys, a bit of a tangent if I may? This is not normally my lane, but I really wish we could get over this term ‘wet market’. From a western point of view if you really think about it, it’s derogatory, and likely based in racial paranoia. We’ve all heard this term time and time again in the media. But after looking into it more, it’s not really accurate. Just call it a market. Or a farmers market as we call them in America. There is nothing special or weird about the market in Wuhan that deserves the ‘wet’ moniker. You wouldn’t call your local farmers market a ‘wet’ market. It’s just something we all heard one time in the news and kept repeating it without much thought.
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    What kind of farmer’s markets have you been to with live animals in poor health being slaughtered in place?
    - croes 5y ago
      Your comment confirms that it is a problematic term. I quote from the Oxford Dictionary: "wet market n. South-East Asian a market for the sale of fresh meat, fish, and produce." There is no mention of animals in poor condition and on-the-spot slaughtering. That's your prejeduce.
      - foobiekr 5y ago
        Photos of the Wuhan market match my description.
    - 40four 5y ago
      This is exactly my point. What exactly makes you think this is the case? How do you know there are animals in 'poor health' there? Maybe the term itself isn't the problem, but the way it was used in American media, especially during the Trump administration. The term, and it's connotations were used in a way to disparage Chinese people. It has been used to suggest the reason we have this pandemic is because these 'inferior' people are eating bats and weird animals in their 'dirty' wet markets.

seventytwo 5y ago

Well, we know for a fact that a >96% similar virus was found to infect the miners naturally in 2006… how hard is it to imagine a few more tweaks since then? We’ve already had many mutations of COVID occur in the past year. Is it crazy to think virus which infected the miners couldn’t have mutated into what we know as COVID?

SiempreViernes 5y ago
No, there is no public evidence that the miners were infected by the virus. The common story is the WIV sent people there to check if it was a virus. From there it diverges to the WIV saying "turns out it was a fungus" and then an obscure masters thesis about the cases that just assumes it was a virus.

ridaj 5y ago

The Wuhan wet market episode, in retrospect, was almost certainly a superspreading event rather than a patient zero situation. The virus's effects are so variable from person to person (lots of asymptomatic carriers, people who just get a little cold, symptoms undistinguishable from the flu) that it was almost certainly already circulating in Wuhan unnoticed, until it became big enough to be hard not to notice. Consider for example what happened in the US, in Washington state at the beginning of the pandemic. The first local community transmissions were detected weeks after they had already started happening, even though there was already a relatively high degree of alertness. Without testing, it wouldn't have been detected at all until a similar superspreading event finally took place. The very fact that miners got sick a few years ago makes it also sound likely, based on Wuhan's history and based on the virus's characteristics, that bat-to-human transmission took place in similar circumstances as the miners' a few weeks or months before the Wuhan wet market event, had some low-key human-to-human transmission simmering in the community which people wrote off as the flu (at worse), until that one superspreading event.

40four 5y ago
Guys, a bit of a tangent if I may? This is not normally my lane, but I really wish we could get over this term ‘wet market’. From a western point of view if you really think about it, it’s derogatory, and likely based in racial paranoia. We’ve all heard this term time and time again in the media. But after looking into it more, it’s not really accurate. Just call it a market. Or a farmers market as we call them in America. There is nothing special or weird about the market in Wuhan that deserves the ‘wet’ moniker. You wouldn’t call your local farmers market a ‘wet’ market. It’s just something we all heard one time in the news and kept repeating it without much thought.
- foobiekr 5y ago
  What kind of farmer’s markets have you been to with live animals in poor health being slaughtered in place?
  - croes 5y ago
    Your comment confirms that it is a problematic term. I quote from the Oxford Dictionary: "wet market n. South-East Asian a market for the sale of fresh meat, fish, and produce." There is no mention of animals in poor condition and on-the-spot slaughtering. That's your prejeduce.
    - foobiekr 5y ago
      Photos of the Wuhan market match my description.
  - 40four 5y ago
    This is exactly my point. What exactly makes you think this is the case? How do you know there are animals in 'poor health' there? Maybe the term itself isn't the problem, but the way it was used in American media, especially during the Trump administration. The term, and it's connotations were used in a way to disparage Chinese people. It has been used to suggest the reason we have this pandemic is because these 'inferior' people are eating bats and weird animals in their 'dirty' wet markets.