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The lab was located there because the wet markets and local bat population have been a historical epicenter of respiratory diseases.
by reilly3000 5y ago
The lab was located there because the wet markets and local bat population have been a historical epicenter of respiratory diseases.
- iammisc 5y agoLove or hate china, you gotta appreciate their brilliance in choice of location for a bioweapons lab.
- launchaway 5y ago“I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animals—particularly bats, a known reservoir. If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, “Could they have come from our lab?” - Shi Zhengli
- stvswn 5y agothere is no local bat population near Wuhan, China -- nor is Wuhan known to be some sort of wet market epicenter. It has wet markets like any Chinese city would. The reason the wet market theory came to prominence was because commerce seemed like a reasonable explanation for how a novel coronavirus showed up so far away from its known animal reservoir (bats). The reason the WIV is in Wuhan is the same as the reason why the CDC is in Atlanta or whatever -- Wuhan is a major city and it has things in it.
- reilly3000 5y agoUnderstood, I should have been more clear that it is the largest urban center close to a large and interesting bat population i.e. hundreds of miles away. Certainly that's not the only wet market, and I just discovered a paper claiming that there were no bats actually being sold at that particular market: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 Coincidentally, my sister lived in Wuhan for 3 years. Prior to 2020, I had to explain its location to people here in the US, but that is no longer the case!