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Except neither bats nor pangolins were sold at the market. That probably should have been one of the first things to check before spending, undoubtedly, million

Except neither bats nor pangolins were sold at the market. That probably should have been one of the first things to check before spending, undoubtedly, millions of dollars. The idea that someone in the lab down the street was accidentally infected with something from the lab and then went to lunch is far more plausible than creatures from thousands of miles away introduced a disease down the street street from a lab working on viruses that are known to be almost identical to the one of interest. There’s no issue with pursuing all leads, but obviously some are much more plausible than others.

igouy 4y ago
> Except neither bats nor pangolins were sold at the market. We know that because…? "Raccoon dogs, marmots, civets, mink, Siberian badgers and many other furry mammals that could have served as intermediate hosts for the SARS-CoV-2 virus were openly, illegally and profitably sold in the market. The wild and farmed animals were documented to be in poor health, and crowded together in their cages." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2021.2006442 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2021.2... "Live animals that are susceptible to COVID-19 were in the market in December 2019" https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/28/1160162845/what-does-the-science-say-about-the-origin-of-the-sars-cov-2-pandemic https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/28/1160162...