CoVID-19’s origin and source dates back to two key articles seen
below.
The first article is here from TIME with this headline
from early January 2020:
“The West Blames the
Wuhan Coronavirus on China’s Love of Eating Wild Animals. The Truth is More
Complex”
It was no secret to anyone in Wuhan, China that the Huanan Seafood Market sold a
lot more than its name suggested. While one side of the low-slung warren of
stalls did primarily stock fish and shellfish, the other offered a cornucopia
of spices, sundries and, if you knew where to look, beavers, porcupines, and
snakes.
Direct personal observation comes from James (only his first
name used due to the sensitivity of the issue), is an English teacher who for
five years lived a few hundred feet from that market who said to TIME: “It was
well-known for selling lots of weird, live animals. So nobody was surprised at
all when it emerged that the virus might have come from an unusual animal.”
More background: Various scientists have confirmed that the pneumonia-like disease (now called CoVID-19), like around 70% of new human pathogens, was in fact zoonotic (i.e., virus transmitted from an animal to human). But, also they are still investigating exactly what creature might be the source of this “novel coronavirus”— belonging to the same family as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
As
Wuhan coronavirus infection rates soar to more than 830 people across more than
half a dozen nations — causing 26 deaths and leading to the unprecedented
lockdown of 13 Chinese cities comprising more than 30 million people
— researchers at the time, examined China’s penchant for consuming wet-market
food and the SARS eventually was traced to civet cats sold in a similar style
of wet market in southern Guandong province.
Some foreign tabloids now are circulating unsubstantiated
claims that the Wuhan coronavirus originated from everything from bat soup to
eating rats and live wolf pups.
It’s certainly true that many Chinese are obsessive about
freshness. Even small supermarkets commonly have fish tanks where shoppers can
purchase live seafood says.
Yanzhong Huang, a public health expert at the CFR (Council
for Foreign Relations says: “This is just part of Chinese culture. They love to
eat anything alive. As long as there are wet markets, we will continue to see
these outbreaks popping up.”
Ultimately, experts say that it’s hard to downplay the
problematic nature of “wet markets” (so named because of the large quantities
of water used to slosh the floors), especially those that also sell live
animals. A mixture of urine, feces, and other bodily fluids from live, wild
creatures ends up mixing with blood from butchered animals, providing ideal
opportunities for viruses and bacteria to thrive.
Wild animals are, of course, especially problematic because
their murky provenience makes it difficult to ensure they are free of disease.
For this very reason, health campaigns in Africa warn people
against the consumption of “bush meat,” which has been linked to the spread of
countless diseases, including HIV/Aids.
Scientists first thought that Ebola started with the consumption of
bat meat in a village of south-eastern Guinea, but they now believe
that the two-year-old girl known as “Child Zero” was likely infected via bat droppings that contaminated an object she ate.
MERS likewise also was primarily spread from live camels to
humans through association, rather than the eating of camel meat.
The second article is from the WSJ with this headline
(May 23, 2021):
“U.S. Intelligence on Sick
Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin”
Report says three Lab researchers went to hospital in November
2019, shortly before confirmed outbreak – that adds to calls for probe of
whether virus escaped lab or not, and accidently or not.
— Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology
became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according
to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to
growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.
The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department
fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which
said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens,
became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and
common seasonal illness.”
The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of
their illnesses, and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the
WHO’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase
of an investigation into Covid-19’s origin.
Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence
about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the
supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by
an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of
further investigation and additional corroboration.
Another person described the intelligence as stronger saying: “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why or how they (the lab workers) got sick.”
My 2 cents: Yes, we,
indeed the whole world needs a full accounting of the origin and spread of CoVID-19 (see chart above) –
it impacts the world and the world needs answer and China needs to ‘fess up,
which I believe they are not fully.
I’m glad President Biden is calling for full and independent
investigation, which China must allow – but probably
won’t since they consider the “case closed.” However, it is not at this point.
Nothing to be afraid of,
right? Let’s hope that it was an accident and at the time just that and of an
unknown origin at the same time – nothing nefarious we hope.
Thanks for stopping by.
No comments:
Post a Comment