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> What is likely is that the virus jumped from bats to humans 'in the field', i.e. in nature. This is what happened with SARS and MERS to the best of our knowle

> What is likely is that the virus jumped from bats to humans 'in the field', i.e. in nature. This is what happened with SARS and MERS to the best of our knowledge. Both SARS and MERS had an intermediate host before it jumped to humans. Many other species are vulnerable to COVID, so it is not at all necessary that it was directly transmitted from bats to humans Insinuating that this was caused by the group that was studying bats at the Wuhan institute is not really good science because there are so many equally likely hypotheses. This does not really help finding the real origins of COVID. The most likely outcome of the current pressure on China is that this country will try to destroy all results they have on bat viruses.

uCantCauseUCant 5y ago
The problem is the location. If some low-paid bat catcher would have cought it first, it would have happened miles away first. The out-break center wouldn't be near a research facility. It also would have happened a lot sooner. And all the time, to the point that the local farmes would have had resistance. Eating exotic animals is not some rare event in china. The whole animal hop hypothesis just makes no sense with the events as they unfolded. This whole emphasis & push on zoonosis-narrative is "gain of function" research investors in full deflection-mode. Cause if a research field, whos job is to basically create "bioweapons" and pretend its to protect humanity - releases one of the weapons by accident, that is a reason to cut funding permanently, if there ever was one.