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It was in Wuhan, next to a BSL-4 virology institute that synthesizes and analyzes coronaviruses and other deadly diseases. But it most likely came from the seaf

It was in Wuhan, next to a BSL-4 virology institute that synthesizes and analyzes coronaviruses and other deadly diseases. But it most likely came from the seafood market down the road.

jml7c5 5y ago
The BSL-4 lab is ~14 km away from the market.
- slenk 5y ago
  Correlation does not mean causation.
  - _heimdall 5y ago
    A lack of correlation definitely does not mean causation, and they never found any relevant evidence of CoV-2 transmission in the wet market. They also never found cases of Covid prior to November 2019, which would mean this virus somehow became an extremely good for for human transmission within weeks of making the jump.
  - Flankk 5y ago
    If two variables are correlated that means they share a relationship. If you are stating that the relationship is coincidental then you should have a basis for that rationale. This can easily be estimated. There are 59 BSL4 labs in the world. The wet market is 14 km away from the lab. The Earth's land surface area is 148,326,000 km2. 14^2 * pi * 59 = 36,329 km2 36,329 / 148,326,000 = 0.000245 There is a 0.02% chance that a random disease will outbreak within 14 km of a BSL4 lab.
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      Setting aside all the other evidence for and against the lab-leak hypothesis, I gotta argue with your numbers. Humans are not randomly distributed over the land-surface of the earth. Neither are virology labs. The first known starting point of a disease outbreak will almost definitely be in a densely populated area, since that's basically a requirement for an outbreak. So taking that into account we have to correlate densely populated areas with BSL4 labs. For a back-of-the-envelope estimate, let's use the assumption: > "About 90% of the earth’s people live on only 10% of the land." And let's assume that all of those 59 labs are in that 10% as well. I'm sure it's actually smaller than that - since not all of that 10% of the land has enough density to be the epicenter of an outbreak, but... let's roll with that 10% That'd put you off by a factor of 10. 14^2 * pi * 59 = 36,329 km2 148,326,000 * 10% = 14,832,600 36,329 / 14,832,600 = 0.00245 aka 0.2% On top of that there have been multiple tries at this - in recent memory we've seen SARS classic, Covid-19, MERS-CoV, and Swine Flu. That's four chances at a target at least as big as 0.2%. My probabilities are rusty, but I believe that's 99.8% * 99.8% * 99.8% * 99.8% = 99.2% chance of none of those appearing near a lab or an 0.8% chance it was near a lab. If we take that into account, it starts to seem a bit more likely that we'd see something like this... And let's not even touch the > 1300 BLS3 labs that are out there.
      - mandmandam 5y ago
        With all respect, how do you think this proves your point at all? Do you not find it absurd in the extreme that the novel Coronavirus lab a few km from the outbreak of a novel coronavirus was barred from investigation? Is it not a giant raging blinking neon clue that when Australia wanted an investigation China threatened them with economic apocalypse? And in this context, you think a .8% chance that it would appear near a lab is high enough to discount the possibility??? My head is exploding.
        kennywinker 5y ago
        > With all respect, how do you think this proves your point at all? I wasn’t trying to prove a point, I was trying to dis-prove a point: that you can’t prove the lab leaks based on geography alone. 0.02% chance is VERY unlikely - it’s not proof but it sure does suggest. A 0.2% chance or a 0.8% chance is… well it’s still rare, but not shockingly rare. Again I suspect the geographic odds are even higher, if you properly correlate outbreak-size population density and labs. Bsl3 labs brings the odds closer to 5% (or 19% if you count the four other novel disease incidents and I’m doing my probability math right). Again, none of this disproves a lab leak. But it sure does tell us that we can’t prove it with geography, as the post I was responding to suggested.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      The problem with this sort of crude statistical analysis is that it assumes humans and coronaviruses are evenly distributed across the earth's surface. This obviously isn't the case. Wuhan is a densely populated major population centre and transit/commerce hub with a population larger than the Bay Area, and the [large] surrounding region supplying produce to Wuhan's markets includes rural areas noted for animal coronaviruses, including the suspected origin of SARS. Which isn't to say there's no statistical reason to consider the lab and the outbreak might be linked, but back of the envelope maths which ignores the existence of cities is the opposite of a compelling case. No to mention that the outbreak is the first known one, not the origin which - if not spread from a lab - is likely somewhere considerably more rural and less likely to attract attention. Took 15 years to trace the probable natural origin of SARS in China (1000km away from the first city outbreak, 1km from a neighbouring village) which wasn't as highly politicised. The subsequent lab-originated local SARS outbreaks were traced to people associated with the labs more easily (though again, they weren't as highly politicised).
      - Flankk 5y ago
        These viruses come from animals, not humans. The probability of rural infection is probably much higher, as you said. So cut it in half, it's more like a 0.01% chance.
        notahacker 5y ago
        Yes, if you completely ignore the probability of detection being much higher when the virus reaches an urban area, and the reference in my post to the original SARS virus being traced to an "origin" in an urban area 1000 miles from its animal source, much like the MERS virus was identified in Jeddah and not amongst camel herders in the desert, you can make up new estimates which also bear no resemblance to the actual underlying probabilities.
        Flankk 5y ago
        No to mention that the outbreak is the first known one, not the origin Epidemiologists conducted an extensive investigation to trace the origin. The probability of detection is not higher in the city. So I'm afraid that's incorrect. You're not making any sense here. You're disputing both the lab leak theory and the wet market theory? You're just shifting the goalposts to fit your argument.
- sockfish 5y ago
  Yeah but one of the BSL2 labs (coronavirus research was being done in BSL2/3 labs, not BSL4) is not. It is a couple of hundred meters down the street https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1D12qtMmmH_qrb57fUSVXd38KhMwd5kU-&ll=30.611487847651997%2C114.26080326470161&z=14 https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1D12qtMmmH_qrb5...
dangrossman 5y ago
Wuhan is also home to bat caves where we've identified dozens of SARS/COVID-like viruses to date. They're the same caves three of that lab's researchers went into before becoming hospitalized with a flu-like illness in December of 2019. Even if you could trace this pandemic to those three researchers, it would not be evidence of SARS-COV-2 being a manufactured virus.
- timr 5y ago
  > Wuhan is also home to bat caves where we've identified dozens of SARS/COVID-like viruses to date. The closest related natural viruses to SARS-CoV2 were not found in Wuhan. They were found in caves in Yunnan, and possibly Laos. > The same caves three of that lab's researchers went into before becoming hospitalized with a flu-like illness in December of 2019 Again, Yunnan, not Wuhan. The researchers worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
- petre 5y ago
  The bat caves are mostly in the region of Yunnan, a mountainous region famous for the tea with the same name. It directly borders Myanmar and Laos. Noted, about "nearby", edited.
  - wk_end 5y ago
    Not really "nearby" - they're something like 1500km away. Unless you'd refer to Warsaw as a nearby city of Paris, or Atlanta as nearby to New York, or Vancouver, BC as nearby to San Jose. ETA: parent comment (to their credit!) edited the above to remove the world "nearby" either while I was replying or right after. Still leaving this comment up because it's worth pointing out just how far those caves are from Wuhan.
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      Since you called it out, and I live in Vancouver, BC - before the pandemic put a damper on travel I would say that Vancouver, BC and San Jose are pretty close - not geographically but for virus transmission. More important than physical distance, for a virus, is how often and how many potential carriers move between the locations.
pyaamb 5y ago
guilhas 5y ago
With grants from the USA
mytailorisrich 5y ago
First known outbreak does not mean/imply origin.
pizza234 5y ago
There are at least two interpretations of "came from the seafood market down the road" (Hunan seafood market): - an infected animal at the market transmitted the virus to humans - an infected human at the market transmitted the virus to humans The book "Viral" (Chan/Ridley), states, based on the official research performed on the matter: > This China-WHO report revealed a different picture from that given by media reports. The market was called a seafood market for a reason: most of the stalls were selling seafood and freshwater aquatic products. Crocodiles were being sold alive. Snakes and salamanders were being slaughtered on the spot for sale. From sales records in December 2019, just ten stalls were selling meat or products from birds and mammals, including chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants and doves; and deer, badgers, rabbits, bamboo rats, porcupines and hedgehogs. According to the market authorities, all of these animals were from licensed farms and no illegal trade in wildlife was detected. > The authorities tested 457 samples from 188 animals spanning 18 species. They all proved negative for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. This included 27 stray cats (a species that is susceptible to the virus), which were presumably living free in or around the market, as well as 52 rabbits and hares, 16 hedgehogs, ten mice, seven dogs, six muntjac deer, six badgers, six bamboo rats, a number of pigs, five chickens, three giant salamanders, two wild boar, two crocodiles, two soft-shelled turtles, two fish, one sheep and one weasel. They tested 616 animals of ten species from the suppliers to the market and found no sign of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. Note that this doesn't imply the lab-leak hypothesis, as the human in the second case may have contracted the virus from an animal elsewhere.
kuhewa 5y ago
Well, yes. Wuhan is the largest city in central China which is why there is a large science lab there, and one that studies viruses in bats in caves in the sand province. But that's the same reason- that it is a large urban hub for the region- that there is significant amount of wildlife trade and The population densities to foster a pandemic arising from a zoonotic spillover. No coincidence need be invoked.
- captainmuon 5y ago
  > No coincidence need be invoked. It is not just a coincidence, but a plausible hypothesis, just like the hypothesis that it is a zoonosis from an exotic animal market. I think we have to take all possible causes seriously. Act as if it was a zoonosis and act as if it was a lab leak, in order to prevent another pandemic. (Actually, I think the lab leak is both the more scary and the easier to prevent cause, so no matter what actually happened we should try to shut down this possibility as much as possible in the future.)
- code_biologist 5y ago
  The book Viral suggests that the wildlife trade, especially the intermediate species under consideration, is significantly more prevalent in southern China. Further, wildlife trade is seasonal and Oct/Nov (when the virus emerged) is the beginning of the winter slow season, with most trade occurring in summer months. Again, if it's zoonotic it's surprising that it would emerge in a city with much less animal trade than somewhere like Guangdong, and in the slow months of that trade.
  - kuhewa 5y ago
    There may be more wildlife trade to the south, but Wuhan has a substantial amount of wildlife trade, along with being the trading and transport hub in a region with lots of Rhinolophid bat habitat in rural areas (and areas where the human population has a considerable (several %) background prevelance of bat virus antibodies. Appearance in autumn could easily fit with infection from a traded animal a couple months earlier and perhaps a couple of host jumps to gain mutations that conferred pandemic potential. We won't know just how much of a long shot - or just how parsimonious a Wuhan emergence was unless we actually identified early hosts and the likely chain of events that occurred, but depending on the details, even despite the points you raise Wuhan could end up the 'likeliest' spot. My point here is assuming zoonotic origin, it isn't a one in a trillion coincidence that Wuhan has a coronavirus lab. It has a coronavirus lab for the same reasons a zoonotic origin appears likely - it is within trading/sampling expedition distance to bat caves and is an urban hub. Perhaps Guangdong still was the more likely candidate for a pandemic emergence, but based on what we know today Wuhan appears to be 1-in-100 betting favourite, plus or minus an order of magnitude.

It was in Wuhan, next to a BSL-4 virology institute that synthesizes and analyzes coronaviruses and other deadly diseases. But it most likely came from the seafood market down the road.

jml7c5 5y ago

The BSL-4 lab is ~14 km away from the market.

slenk 5y ago
Correlation does not mean causation.
- _heimdall 5y ago
  A lack of correlation definitely does not mean causation, and they never found any relevant evidence of CoV-2 transmission in the wet market. They also never found cases of Covid prior to November 2019, which would mean this virus somehow became an extremely good for for human transmission within weeks of making the jump.
- Flankk 5y ago
  If two variables are correlated that means they share a relationship. If you are stating that the relationship is coincidental then you should have a basis for that rationale. This can easily be estimated. There are 59 BSL4 labs in the world. The wet market is 14 km away from the lab. The Earth's land surface area is 148,326,000 km2. 14^2 * pi * 59 = 36,329 km2 36,329 / 148,326,000 = 0.000245 There is a 0.02% chance that a random disease will outbreak within 14 km of a BSL4 lab.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    Setting aside all the other evidence for and against the lab-leak hypothesis, I gotta argue with your numbers. Humans are not randomly distributed over the land-surface of the earth. Neither are virology labs. The first known starting point of a disease outbreak will almost definitely be in a densely populated area, since that's basically a requirement for an outbreak. So taking that into account we have to correlate densely populated areas with BSL4 labs. For a back-of-the-envelope estimate, let's use the assumption: > "About 90% of the earth’s people live on only 10% of the land." And let's assume that all of those 59 labs are in that 10% as well. I'm sure it's actually smaller than that - since not all of that 10% of the land has enough density to be the epicenter of an outbreak, but... let's roll with that 10% That'd put you off by a factor of 10. 14^2 * pi * 59 = 36,329 km2 148,326,000 * 10% = 14,832,600 36,329 / 14,832,600 = 0.00245 aka 0.2% On top of that there have been multiple tries at this - in recent memory we've seen SARS classic, Covid-19, MERS-CoV, and Swine Flu. That's four chances at a target at least as big as 0.2%. My probabilities are rusty, but I believe that's 99.8% * 99.8% * 99.8% * 99.8% = 99.2% chance of none of those appearing near a lab or an 0.8% chance it was near a lab. If we take that into account, it starts to seem a bit more likely that we'd see something like this... And let's not even touch the > 1300 BLS3 labs that are out there.
    - mandmandam 5y ago
      With all respect, how do you think this proves your point at all? Do you not find it absurd in the extreme that the novel Coronavirus lab a few km from the outbreak of a novel coronavirus was barred from investigation? Is it not a giant raging blinking neon clue that when Australia wanted an investigation China threatened them with economic apocalypse? And in this context, you think a .8% chance that it would appear near a lab is high enough to discount the possibility??? My head is exploding.
      - kennywinker 5y ago
        > With all respect, how do you think this proves your point at all? I wasn’t trying to prove a point, I was trying to dis-prove a point: that you can’t prove the lab leaks based on geography alone. 0.02% chance is VERY unlikely - it’s not proof but it sure does suggest. A 0.2% chance or a 0.8% chance is… well it’s still rare, but not shockingly rare. Again I suspect the geographic odds are even higher, if you properly correlate outbreak-size population density and labs. Bsl3 labs brings the odds closer to 5% (or 19% if you count the four other novel disease incidents and I’m doing my probability math right). Again, none of this disproves a lab leak. But it sure does tell us that we can’t prove it with geography, as the post I was responding to suggested.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    The problem with this sort of crude statistical analysis is that it assumes humans and coronaviruses are evenly distributed across the earth's surface. This obviously isn't the case. Wuhan is a densely populated major population centre and transit/commerce hub with a population larger than the Bay Area, and the [large] surrounding region supplying produce to Wuhan's markets includes rural areas noted for animal coronaviruses, including the suspected origin of SARS. Which isn't to say there's no statistical reason to consider the lab and the outbreak might be linked, but back of the envelope maths which ignores the existence of cities is the opposite of a compelling case. No to mention that the outbreak is the first known one, not the origin which - if not spread from a lab - is likely somewhere considerably more rural and less likely to attract attention. Took 15 years to trace the probable natural origin of SARS in China (1000km away from the first city outbreak, 1km from a neighbouring village) which wasn't as highly politicised. The subsequent lab-originated local SARS outbreaks were traced to people associated with the labs more easily (though again, they weren't as highly politicised).
    - Flankk 5y ago
      These viruses come from animals, not humans. The probability of rural infection is probably much higher, as you said. So cut it in half, it's more like a 0.01% chance.
      - notahacker 5y ago
        Yes, if you completely ignore the probability of detection being much higher when the virus reaches an urban area, and the reference in my post to the original SARS virus being traced to an "origin" in an urban area 1000 miles from its animal source, much like the MERS virus was identified in Jeddah and not amongst camel herders in the desert, you can make up new estimates which also bear no resemblance to the actual underlying probabilities.
        Flankk 5y ago
        No to mention that the outbreak is the first known one, not the origin Epidemiologists conducted an extensive investigation to trace the origin. The probability of detection is not higher in the city. So I'm afraid that's incorrect. You're not making any sense here. You're disputing both the lab leak theory and the wet market theory? You're just shifting the goalposts to fit your argument.
sockfish 5y ago
Yeah but one of the BSL2 labs (coronavirus research was being done in BSL2/3 labs, not BSL4) is not. It is a couple of hundred meters down the street https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1D12qtMmmH_qrb57fUSVXd38KhMwd5kU-&ll=30.611487847651997%2C114.26080326470161&z=14 https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1D12qtMmmH_qrb5...

dangrossman 5y ago

Wuhan is also home to bat caves where we've identified dozens of SARS/COVID-like viruses to date. They're the same caves three of that lab's researchers went into before becoming hospitalized with a flu-like illness in December of 2019. Even if you could trace this pandemic to those three researchers, it would not be evidence of SARS-COV-2 being a manufactured virus.

timr 5y ago
> Wuhan is also home to bat caves where we've identified dozens of SARS/COVID-like viruses to date. The closest related natural viruses to SARS-CoV2 were not found in Wuhan. They were found in caves in Yunnan, and possibly Laos. > The same caves three of that lab's researchers went into before becoming hospitalized with a flu-like illness in December of 2019 Again, Yunnan, not Wuhan. The researchers worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
petre 5y ago
The bat caves are mostly in the region of Yunnan, a mountainous region famous for the tea with the same name. It directly borders Myanmar and Laos. Noted, about "nearby", edited.
- wk_end 5y ago
  Not really "nearby" - they're something like 1500km away. Unless you'd refer to Warsaw as a nearby city of Paris, or Atlanta as nearby to New York, or Vancouver, BC as nearby to San Jose. ETA: parent comment (to their credit!) edited the above to remove the world "nearby" either while I was replying or right after. Still leaving this comment up because it's worth pointing out just how far those caves are from Wuhan.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    Since you called it out, and I live in Vancouver, BC - before the pandemic put a damper on travel I would say that Vancouver, BC and San Jose are pretty close - not geographically but for virus transmission. More important than physical distance, for a virus, is how often and how many potential carriers move between the locations.

pyaamb 5y ago

guilhas 5y ago

With grants from the USA

mytailorisrich 5y ago

First known outbreak does not mean/imply origin.

pizza234 5y ago

There are at least two interpretations of "came from the seafood market down the road" (Hunan seafood market): - an infected animal at the market transmitted the virus to humans - an infected human at the market transmitted the virus to humans The book "Viral" (Chan/Ridley), states, based on the official research performed on the matter: > This China-WHO report revealed a different picture from that given by media reports. The market was called a seafood market for a reason: most of the stalls were selling seafood and freshwater aquatic products. Crocodiles were being sold alive. Snakes and salamanders were being slaughtered on the spot for sale. From sales records in December 2019, just ten stalls were selling meat or products from birds and mammals, including chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants and doves; and deer, badgers, rabbits, bamboo rats, porcupines and hedgehogs. According to the market authorities, all of these animals were from licensed farms and no illegal trade in wildlife was detected. > The authorities tested 457 samples from 188 animals spanning 18 species. They all proved negative for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. This included 27 stray cats (a species that is susceptible to the virus), which were presumably living free in or around the market, as well as 52 rabbits and hares, 16 hedgehogs, ten mice, seven dogs, six muntjac deer, six badgers, six bamboo rats, a number of pigs, five chickens, three giant salamanders, two wild boar, two crocodiles, two soft-shelled turtles, two fish, one sheep and one weasel. They tested 616 animals of ten species from the suppliers to the market and found no sign of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. Note that this doesn't imply the lab-leak hypothesis, as the human in the second case may have contracted the virus from an animal elsewhere.

kuhewa 5y ago

Well, yes. Wuhan is the largest city in central China which is why there is a large science lab there, and one that studies viruses in bats in caves in the sand province. But that's the same reason- that it is a large urban hub for the region- that there is significant amount of wildlife trade and The population densities to foster a pandemic arising from a zoonotic spillover. No coincidence need be invoked.

captainmuon 5y ago
> No coincidence need be invoked. It is not just a coincidence, but a plausible hypothesis, just like the hypothesis that it is a zoonosis from an exotic animal market. I think we have to take all possible causes seriously. Act as if it was a zoonosis and act as if it was a lab leak, in order to prevent another pandemic. (Actually, I think the lab leak is both the more scary and the easier to prevent cause, so no matter what actually happened we should try to shut down this possibility as much as possible in the future.)
code_biologist 5y ago
The book Viral suggests that the wildlife trade, especially the intermediate species under consideration, is significantly more prevalent in southern China. Further, wildlife trade is seasonal and Oct/Nov (when the virus emerged) is the beginning of the winter slow season, with most trade occurring in summer months. Again, if it's zoonotic it's surprising that it would emerge in a city with much less animal trade than somewhere like Guangdong, and in the slow months of that trade.
- kuhewa 5y ago
  There may be more wildlife trade to the south, but Wuhan has a substantial amount of wildlife trade, along with being the trading and transport hub in a region with lots of Rhinolophid bat habitat in rural areas (and areas where the human population has a considerable (several %) background prevelance of bat virus antibodies. Appearance in autumn could easily fit with infection from a traded animal a couple months earlier and perhaps a couple of host jumps to gain mutations that conferred pandemic potential. We won't know just how much of a long shot - or just how parsimonious a Wuhan emergence was unless we actually identified early hosts and the likely chain of events that occurred, but depending on the details, even despite the points you raise Wuhan could end up the 'likeliest' spot. My point here is assuming zoonotic origin, it isn't a one in a trillion coincidence that Wuhan has a coronavirus lab. It has a coronavirus lab for the same reasons a zoonotic origin appears likely - it is within trading/sampling expedition distance to bat caves and is an urban hub. Perhaps Guangdong still was the more likely candidate for a pandemic emergence, but based on what we know today Wuhan appears to be 1-in-100 betting favourite, plus or minus an order of magnitude.