The story of Covid-19 is part science and part intelligence and/or criminal investigation.
The science part is the study of virology — the virus structure and genomics, and the humoral and cellular immunology of the human body’s response to the virus when it invades the body. It includes looking at it as not only a respiratory pathogen spread via aerosols, but also as a virus that spreads systemically causing damage to body systems that go beyond the lungs. The science is also involved in the investigation, via analyses of the virus sequence of this virus and related viruses. As a kind of forensics, looking at the viral fingerprint to see where the virus started and where it spread. You have medical doctors, virologists, immunologists, vaccine and therapeutics researchers, public health specialists, molecular biologists, biochemists and more, all studying some aspect of this virus. Even WHO is sending scientists to China to hunt for the virus in the wild. Science is trying to understand how the virus causes disease, how it spreads, and how it may be prevented or treated — and even what animal reservoir(s) it may be transmitted via.
A diverse group of experts from a range of countries and disciplines could also provide fresh insights to Chinese researchers who are probing the coronavirus’s origin, says Dale Fisher, an infectious-disease researcher at the National University of Singapore.
But researchers should also be prepared to find nothing, notes Gryseels, who says the search will be “looking for a needle in a haystack the size of Asia or larger”.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The intelligence investigation involves understanding is any entity responsible for causing this virus to spread? Was it purposefully spread, human error, or was it dumb luck, or mother nature? Is the cause of its spread criminal in nature? Through malicious intent? Through misinformation or stifling of dissemination of information?
Did the virus come from a natural reservoir? Is there any evidence of human tinkering? - is where science and intelligence investigation may meet.
We do know that Covid-19 has great homology with bat coronaviruses, strongly suggesting bats as a reservoir. But how did it make the jump from bats to humans? Was it simply someone handling bats or pangolins as part of a wet market? Was it somehow accidentally released from a Research Institute in the same city — that happens to research bat coronaviruses?
And before you go throwing around accusations of conspiracy theories...we really don’t have evidence it came from either place. We are reasonably confident its spread started in Wuhan, though.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From earlier this year — Map showing cases of Covid-19 in China. Wuhan in the province of Hubei is the epicenter in Black
I am interested in both the science regarding the mechanism of this virus to cause disease while also interested in the methods to investigate where did it come from. I enjoy a good mystery — a whodunnit.
Humans are lousy at keeping conspiracies hidden, but can also miss identifying human error. Human have screwed up throughout history. And countries are good at trying to cast blame on others as they don’t want to appear responsible. They can have other motives for withholding information or spreading misinformation.
The world is full of shades of gray. And we as yet do not have all the data. We are still living in this experiment. And I for one will keep asking questions. Because the first answers we get aren’t always the right ones or the most complete.
So why do I bring this up? Because the minute you even suggest asking about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the P4 lab it houses, you are accused of being a conspiracy theorist and rejecting science. The reality is, there is much we don’t know with any certainty from Wuhan. The Chinese Government have from the beginning and to this day continue to suppress any information not put out through them directly. And that makes this investigation that much harder. Do we want to do the same thing here? Suppress discussion of the origins of this virus?
I will give you an example that I recall well of news reporting that focused on a white box truck seen by a number of witnesses during the time the DC Sniper was killing residents of the DC Metro area in 2002. Everyone was paranoid of any white box truck they saw. I’m sure the police were spot checking any white box truck they encountered. At the end of the whole ordeal we found out there was never any white box truck involved. But once one witness reported seeing it, it planted that seed where all witnesses clung to that image. It got reported day after day.
The two main reasons that the wet market became a very likely suspect location is that many of those infected in December lived near the market or worked in the market. And the market reportedly sold exotic animals that included pangolins, though the sale of bats is unconfirmed. China closed this specific wet market on January 1, 2020 due to suspicions that it was the source of the outbreak.
Note: Even the scientific paper I cited in the beginning of this diary was careful in its discussion of the origin of the virus, sticking to what we really know:
The origin of SARS-CoV-2 was traced to the city of Wuhan in the province of Hubei, China, where a cluster of viral pneumonia cases was first detected, many in connection with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market
On December 12th, 2019, a novel coronavirus was identified as causing pneumonia disease in Wuhan. This was later called SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses on 11 February 2020 and the WHO named it Covid-19. Some scientific evidence points to an origin of the virus appearing in Wuhan in the October/November time range, maybe even earlier. (CNN Report on satellite image data suggests as far back as August). Also, greater than 45% of cases prior to January 1, 2020, were in people not associated with the market, including the first identified case.
For us in the West, it’s easier to think that a market that sells exotic animals for consumption (ick!) would be the source of this virus. There is a whole cultural squeamishness factor there. Also, it has animal carcasses (perhaps on ice?) there giving a liquid exposure potential. No argument from me on that. However, that is not proof that it started at the market, but does suggest a spreading event did occur there. Another similar spreading event at a wet market recently occurred in Beijing. Are the animals the common denominator or are these simply places where people congregate, promoting the spread of the virus? Particularly those with low incomes.
Now there are reports that the Wuhan Institute of Virology did receive samples that appear similar to Covid-19. Could this be the smoking gun?
Virus samples sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology seven years ago closely resemble Covid-19, according to a report in the Sunday Times that highlights unanswered questions about the origins of the global pandemic.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Map Denoting Yunnan Province in Red
Scientists in 2013 sent frozen samples to the Wuhan lab from a bat-infested former copper mine in southwest China after six men who had been clearing out bat feces there contracted a severe pneumonia, the newspaper said.
Three of them died and the most likely cause was a coronavirus transmitted from a bat, the Sunday Times reported, citing a medic whose supervisor worked in the emergency department that treated the men. The same mine in Yunnan Province was subsequently studied by Shi Zhengli, an expert in SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origins at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
However, other scientists suggest the sequence homology is not THAT close (96% homology), that some evolution occurred in between. But it does illustrate that the lab does possess deadly specimens taken from the wild. This is not inconsistent with scientists saying it was not engineered in a lab.
Along the same lines as the satellite data showing less traffic in the fall in Wuhan, there are reports of cell phone data showing a shutdown at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in October. But a variety of different unnamed intelligence and government officials as sources for the story give differing and even conflicting information. Plus there is not much that comes out of the Donald’s mouth that can be taken at face value. Though at the same time, he is not one to be able to keep intelligence confidential either.
This article is one of the better ones that goes into the facts of this story and the debate even in the scientific community of what it would take to definitively rule out either location.
But several scientists say that although they do not believe that the virus escaped from the lab, analyses are limited in what they can reveal about its origin.
There is unlikely to be a characteristic sign that a genome has been manipulated, says Jack Nunberg, a virologist at the University of Montana in Missoula, who does not believe the virus came from a lab. If, for instance, scientists had added instructions for a furin cleavage site into the virus’s genome, “there is no way to know whether humans or nature inserted the site”, he says.
In the end, it will be very difficult, or even impossible, to prove or disprove the theory that the virus escaped from a lab, says Milad Miladi, who studies RNA evolution at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany. And despite scientists such as Shi warning the world that a new infectious respiratory disease would emerge at some point, “unfortunately, little was done to prepare for that,” he says. Hopefully governments will learn and be better prepared for the next pandemic, he says.
I have to laugh at the description of a virus escaping from a lab, like a wild animal. Simply, if someone at the lab had an exposure incident in the lab with a lethal coronavirus specimen, never became symptomatic, but was able to spread the virus, that would be all it takes. You can see how infectious this Covid-19 has proven to be. And while the Wuhan Institute of Virology has a P4 (BSL-4) facility, my understanding is these SARS-like coronaviruses generally are handled at BSL-3 which means without the moon suits and dedicated oxygen lines that would be used for BSL-4. It would be handled in biosafety cabinets in a lab designed to keep pathogens in that lab based on air flow and air pressure settings.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Biosafety Levels and pathogens
Highly contagious and lethal pathogens such as Ebola are handled at BSL-4. For BSL-3, Rabies and Hantaviruses are good examples of pathogens handled at this biosafety level. There is a world of difference in the workflows, lab engineering controls, and the extent of safety precautions taken when comparing these two biosafety levels. And I hate to say it, but people can and do become complacent. All it takes is one error, one misjudgement — one case of not taking all the necessary precautions — and we end up in the same place. That’s why facilities like this require highly trained individuals and yearly safety training. They need environments where people feel they can speak up and drive continuous improvement. And that has been a criticism of such labs in China where SARS viruses have escaped other labs in and around Beijing. The culture there is not one where anyone feels they can speak the truth or be a whistle-blower and not have family threatened or simply disappear.
To answer the question of where this virus originated will take both science and investigative skill. And we may still never know. Both because the trail may have gone cold and because there has not been much cooperation from China. It is also possible the intelligence community may have some answers, but not the whole story.
Will the next administration be able to provide better transparency and leadership to guide this country and allies to rebuild after Coronavirus and and Donald Trump. — I sure hope so. We have been dealing with the pandemic of anti-science authoritarianism as well as Coronavirus. Shining some light on this may help us understand how this pandemic started and to prevent it from being repeated.
On a sidenote, today there is a story in the WaPo regarding one of their own journalists who is from Wuhan who contracted Covid while vacationing in Florida. She tells her own story, contrasting China’s Collectivism vs the United States Individualism, concluding neither was completely successful against this virus.
And Wuhan, having survived Covid-19, is now dealing with flooding. It has not been an easy year for the city or its residents.
The peak level of the Yangtze River, which runs through Wuhan in Hubei province, passed through the city at 11pm on Sunday at 28.8 metres. It was the river's fourth-highest recorded water level in Wuhan. However, the local government and the city's residents remain on guard as the section of the river in the city is likely to remain above the warning level for at least another 10 days.
China's national observatory renewed a blue alert for rainstorms on Wednesday (July 15), as incessant downpours continued to wreak havoc in vast stretches of the country.
…
After staying at home to minimise the spread of the coronavirus earlier this year, Wuhan residents have now come forward to patrol its flood embankments at all hours to protect the city, which has a population of more than 10 million. Wuhan now has about 30,000 people on patrol every day, according to local authorities.
That certainly illustrates China’s collectivist spirit. And I will end with a video depicting the flooding.
