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> Historically, there have been far, far more documented lab leaks of SARS-CoV than there have been animal-human jumps No. First of all, there were many jumps

> Historically, there have been far, far more documented lab leaks of SARS-CoV than there have been animal-human jumps No. First of all, there were many jumps of SARS from animals into humans, over a period of months in which the markets containing infected animals were open. Second, while there were a few leaks of SARS-CoV after it had been discovered and was being grown in large quantities (these leaks were recognized immediately, too), there is no precedent for a previously unknown coronavirus leaking. > It is very possible that the virus was both zoonotic in origin, and leaked from the lab. Not really. If the virus is natural in origin (which is a certainty now) and completely unknown before the initial outbreak (also a virtual certainty now), the chance that it somehow entered a lab, unknown, and then exited again are basically zero, compared to the chance that it spilled over in any one of the many millions of daily interactions between humans and wild or farmed animals. They were selling farmed wild animals that we know can carry SARS-CoV-2 at the Huanan market, and that's where the initial outbreak was centered. In contrast, there's zero evidence for a lab leak, and not for lack of searching. There's simply no evidence that anyone at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had or knew about this virus before the outbreak, and we have a very good idea of what the WIV was researching.

throwawaymaths 3y ago
You're wrong. There have been at least three known lab leaks of SARS cov-19 post pandemic. Here is one in Taiwan: https://thebulletin.org/2022/01/a-lab-assistant-involved-in-covid-19-research-in-taiwan-exposed-110-people-after- https://thebulletin.org/2022/01/a-lab-assistant-involved-in-... becoming-infected-at-work/amp/ Covid-19 is very slippery. Analogizing from historical pandemics is begging the question and doesn't match the data.
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  How am I wrong? There were countless spillover events for the original SARS. To this day, it's not known precisely how many SARS spillover events there were, because they were so numerous and tracing was so poor back then. In a different comment in this thread, I cited a review article that goes over the evidence for widespread spillover events of SARS in 2002-2003.[0] The gist of it is that SARS popped up independently at numerous markets, dotted across the Pearl River Delta. SARS infection was very common among palm civet traders in the region (it's even possible that most of them became infected). The lab leaks came later, after huge interest emerged in the new virus and it started to be cultured in large quantities in many labs. Those leaks were extremely rare compared to the spillover events, they were immediately detected, and they led to much stricter lab security practices. But the relative probability of a novel virus that nobody even knows they have initially leaking from a lab vs. spilling over from large animal populations that host the virus is basically nil. 0. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-70962-6_13 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-70962-6_...
  - COGlory 3y ago
    You're mixing up animal > human transmission, and zoonotic events. They are not equivalent. Human SARS spike protein RBD could bind palm civet ACE2, but not vice versa. Palm civets (and other animals) could act as reservoirs for human SARS, (as well as non-human SARS, which contributed to the zoonotic event), but that's not the same as a new virus jumping species. It's more like getting rabies from a raccoon. It's possible that the original SARS jumped 3 times total, based on the genetic evidence, but the later two we don't really know because of the hinam -> animal route. Still, with the number of laboratory acquired infections of SARS-CoV-2, it doesn't really tip the scales.
    - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
      > It's more like getting rabies from a raccoon. If rabies were a novel virus that had never infected humans before, you could make the comparison. SARS was a novel virus, which spilled over into humans in a very similar manner to SARS-CoV-2 (wild animal markets in a major Chinese city). > It's possible that the original SARS jumped 3 times total, based on the genetic evidence As the review I cited explains, the epidemiological and serological evidence makes clear that SARS independently jumped over to humans at many different locations, over the course of months.
      - COGlory 3y ago
        I read the review. There are many cases of this: > It's more like getting rabies from a raccoon. And only 3 potential cases of this: > It's possible that the original SARS jumped 3 times total, based on the genetic evidence You're saying animal -> human transmission of a human virus is equivalent to animal -> human transmission of a new virus. Those are two *extremely* different things. The palm civet SARS spike protein RBD did not gain the ability to bind human ACE2 many times. In fact, the evidence for that seems to only be a single time. The remaining two suggested origin events show mutation of the existing virus, followed be retransmission across species barriers. Those are two completely different types of events.
        3y ago
urinotherapist 3y ago
> First of all, there were many jumps of SARS from animals into humans, over a period of months in which the markets containing infected animals were open. Can you point me to one or two cases you are talking about, please?
- pcrh 3y ago
  They may be referring to the study below [0]. This showed that several genetic variants (lineages) of SARS-CoV2 were identified in infected people associated with the market, indicating 1) that the virus was already circulating among people before the epidemic took off, and 2) that there was more than one transmission event. Note that no comparable data associates SARS-CoV2 with the lab in Wuhan. [0] The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abp8715 >we inferred separate introductions of SARS-CoV-2 lineages A and B into humans from likely infected animals at the Huanan market (38). We estimated the first COVID-19 case to have occurred in November 2019, with few human cases and hospitalizations occurring through mid-December. [...] the evidence presented here that lineage A, like lineage B, may have originated at the Huanan market and then spread from this epicenter into the neighborhoods surrounding the market and beyond. Edit: Additional study: [1] The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337 >We show that SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity before February 2020 likely comprised only two distinct viral lineages, denoted “A” and “B.” Phylodynamic rooting methods, coupled with epidemic simulations, reveal that these lineages were the result of at least two separate cross-species transmission events into humans. The first zoonotic transmission likely involved lineage B viruses around 18 November 2019 (23 October to 8 December), and the separate introduction of lineage A likely occurred within weeks of this event.
  - oneshtein 3y ago
    Moreover, there are some suggestions[0][1], which points to Wuhan World Military Games as starting point for the pandemic. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7813667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7813667/ [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/congress-wuhan-military-games-2019-covid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/congress-...

throwawaymaths 3y ago

You're wrong. There have been at least three known lab leaks of SARS cov-19 post pandemic. Here is one in Taiwan: https://thebulletin.org/2022/01/a-lab-assistant-involved-in-covid-19-research-in-taiwan-exposed-110-people-after- https://thebulletin.org/2022/01/a-lab-assistant-involved-in-... becoming-infected-at-work/amp/ Covid-19 is very slippery. Analogizing from historical pandemics is begging the question and doesn't match the data.

DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
How am I wrong? There were countless spillover events for the original SARS. To this day, it's not known precisely how many SARS spillover events there were, because they were so numerous and tracing was so poor back then. In a different comment in this thread, I cited a review article that goes over the evidence for widespread spillover events of SARS in 2002-2003.[0] The gist of it is that SARS popped up independently at numerous markets, dotted across the Pearl River Delta. SARS infection was very common among palm civet traders in the region (it's even possible that most of them became infected). The lab leaks came later, after huge interest emerged in the new virus and it started to be cultured in large quantities in many labs. Those leaks were extremely rare compared to the spillover events, they were immediately detected, and they led to much stricter lab security practices. But the relative probability of a novel virus that nobody even knows they have initially leaking from a lab vs. spilling over from large animal populations that host the virus is basically nil. 0. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-70962-6_13 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-70962-6_...
- COGlory 3y ago
  You're mixing up animal > human transmission, and zoonotic events. They are not equivalent. Human SARS spike protein RBD could bind palm civet ACE2, but not vice versa. Palm civets (and other animals) could act as reservoirs for human SARS, (as well as non-human SARS, which contributed to the zoonotic event), but that's not the same as a new virus jumping species. It's more like getting rabies from a raccoon. It's possible that the original SARS jumped 3 times total, based on the genetic evidence, but the later two we don't really know because of the hinam -> animal route. Still, with the number of laboratory acquired infections of SARS-CoV-2, it doesn't really tip the scales.
  - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
    > It's more like getting rabies from a raccoon. If rabies were a novel virus that had never infected humans before, you could make the comparison. SARS was a novel virus, which spilled over into humans in a very similar manner to SARS-CoV-2 (wild animal markets in a major Chinese city). > It's possible that the original SARS jumped 3 times total, based on the genetic evidence As the review I cited explains, the epidemiological and serological evidence makes clear that SARS independently jumped over to humans at many different locations, over the course of months.
    - COGlory 3y ago
      I read the review. There are many cases of this: > It's more like getting rabies from a raccoon. And only 3 potential cases of this: > It's possible that the original SARS jumped 3 times total, based on the genetic evidence You're saying animal -> human transmission of a human virus is equivalent to animal -> human transmission of a new virus. Those are two *extremely* different things. The palm civet SARS spike protein RBD did not gain the ability to bind human ACE2 many times. In fact, the evidence for that seems to only be a single time. The remaining two suggested origin events show mutation of the existing virus, followed be retransmission across species barriers. Those are two completely different types of events.
      - 3y ago

urinotherapist 3y ago

> First of all, there were many jumps of SARS from animals into humans, over a period of months in which the markets containing infected animals were open. Can you point me to one or two cases you are talking about, please?

pcrh 3y ago
They may be referring to the study below [0]. This showed that several genetic variants (lineages) of SARS-CoV2 were identified in infected people associated with the market, indicating 1) that the virus was already circulating among people before the epidemic took off, and 2) that there was more than one transmission event. Note that no comparable data associates SARS-CoV2 with the lab in Wuhan. [0] The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abp8715 >we inferred separate introductions of SARS-CoV-2 lineages A and B into humans from likely infected animals at the Huanan market (38). We estimated the first COVID-19 case to have occurred in November 2019, with few human cases and hospitalizations occurring through mid-December. [...] the evidence presented here that lineage A, like lineage B, may have originated at the Huanan market and then spread from this epicenter into the neighborhoods surrounding the market and beyond. Edit: Additional study: [1] The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337 >We show that SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity before February 2020 likely comprised only two distinct viral lineages, denoted “A” and “B.” Phylodynamic rooting methods, coupled with epidemic simulations, reveal that these lineages were the result of at least two separate cross-species transmission events into humans. The first zoonotic transmission likely involved lineage B viruses around 18 November 2019 (23 October to 8 December), and the separate introduction of lineage A likely occurred within weeks of this event.
- oneshtein 3y ago
  Moreover, there are some suggestions[0][1], which points to Wuhan World Military Games as starting point for the pandemic. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7813667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7813667/ [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/congress-wuhan-military-games-2019-covid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/congress-...