(2021): New research published in Science gives close to rock solid proof COVID jumped to humans from live animals in Wuhan market
[OLD BLOG POST FROM 2021 COPIED HERE]
This is an old blog post from 2021 which I copied here as I can no longer edit it in Quora (they set a text limit on longer posts)
I expect for many experts this will end the debate. Remarkable. Careful science with geolocation shows clear indications of cross over to humans in Wuhan wet market, not just once but twice - and even a photo of raccoon dogs from 2014 in a section which in 2020 when they closed the market down had five COVID postiive samples.
When the WHO did their investigation, they were told that only legally traded wildlife were found in the market and only the crocodiles were sold live in the main market. They were told that the mammals they traded were all delivered as meat.
See:
But since then clear evidence came up that illegally traded coronavirus susceptible wildlife were sold live in Wuhan markets from 2017 to 2019.
Amongst the most likely are those Raccoon dogs
While c. 30% of mammals were clearly wild-caught, indicated by trapping and shooting wounds, the captive breeding of other species is commonplace in China. Raccoon dog fur farming is legal in China; however, due to a drop in fur prices, raccoon dogs are now frequently sold off in live animal markets, augmented by wild-caught individuals.
. Animal sales from Wuhan wet markets immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic - Scientific Reports
This new paper combines that evidence with detailed study of the coronavirus sequences found in the market by the Chinese. It shows that the samples that tested positive were found associated with wild animal cages and equipment and most focused in the cage that held Raccoon dogs, which are susceptible to COVID.
It also looks at other evidence that shows that the virus spread from the market not once, but twice, with two different variants, both centered on the market.
It also shows that the wet markets were a very unlikely place for the virus to spread after a lab leak.
It’s not yet total proof but it is very compelling evidence.
The paper is here: The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic
Photo of raccoon dogs in same cage in 2014. Raccoon dogs were observed in the market in November and December 2019
5 PCR +ve samples from 1 stall which sold live animals late 2019
4 of those 5 from objects for live animals
Raccoon dogs are known to be susceptible to COVID
Red: +ve tests density
Blue: risk of getting COVID
Tweet thread for this blog post here:.
https://twitter.com/DoomsdayDebunks/status/1552722808039424000
See also
This post is coped from here:
Some of that blog post was a bit unclear and needed rewriting. It is out of date - back then there was still a lot of interest in 2nd and 3rd generation COVID vaccines but sadly that interest has rather evaporated. They are still working on them but at closer to pre-pandemic speed. There were many vaccines in development that had remarkable potential to be far more effective against COVID and other coronaviruses than the ones we have now so I ended this blog post with a discussion of them. Need to do a new blog post at some point on what came of them and what the status is now.
TITLES OF SECTIONS LIKE MINI ABSTRACTS - SUMMARIZE WHAT THEY SAY IN THE TITLE
I write titles of sections like mini abstracts - you can get a first idea of the article by reading just the titles and looking at the graphics - then drill into any section of special interest.
HOW TO FIND A DEBUNK, OUR FACEBOOK GROUP, HELP IF SUICIDAL, ABOUT ME, PERMISSION FOR REUSE ETC
ALL CASES - AND CASES NOT LINKED TO THE MARKET BOTH CENTER ON THE HUANAN MARKET
The highest density 1% of cases with no known link to Huanan market are even more tightly distributed around the market than highest density 1% of cases with a known link (using density smoothing - kernel density estimate)
MARKET IS UNLIKELY LOCATION FOR A FIRST SUPERSPREADER EVENT - 70 MORE LIKELY MARKETS AND 430 MORE LIKELY HIGH RISK SUPERSPREADER LOCATIONS IN WUHAN
COVID hasn’t often spread as a superspreader event in open markets. In this paper they found that the market was an unlikely location for a first superspreader event if it crossed to humans somewhere else. There are 430 locations identified as high risk for superspreading during the outbreak with more visitors than the market, using Wiebo social media check in data (which is very widely used in China).
430 high risk superspreader locations in Wuhan with more visitors than Wuhan market
70 markets with more visitors
Figures from the paper here (which is released under a creative commons license): The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic
The market had only 120 out of 262,233 social media check-ins, or 0.04% of the 430 potential superspreader sites identified from a data set from 2015.
This is the dataset they used:
. Explorative Analysis of Wuhan Intra-Urban Human Mobility Using Social Media Check-In Data
Huanan market wasn’t even the most visited market for sale of live wild animals. It accounted for 206 of 98,146 checkins to the four markets in Wuhan selling live wild animals.
EVIDENCE FROM ANOTHER PAPER BY THE SAME AUTHORS THAT LINEAGES A AND B JUMPED TO HUMANS INDEPENDENTLY IN THE SAME MARKET BEFORE IT WAS CLOSED ON JANUARY 1ST
In another paper by the same lead author published simultaneously in Science they give evidence that lineage A and Lineage B jumped to humans independently in the same market.
This is plausible as there have been multiple jumps back to humans from animals originally infected by humans during the pandemic They mention that this has happened twice for pet hamsters in Hong Kong and numerous times from d mink.
The market was closed on Jan 1st and by then there were no live animals there susceptible to COVID, so there were no more opportunities for new lineages to cross over after Lineage B and Lineage A and no more independent lineages have been found.
Also COVID has been able to jump to many different animals so it’s not surprising to find it already pre-adapted to be able to jump to humans.
: The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2
EARLY COVID DIDN’T SPREAD EASILY IN HUMANS - MOST CASES THAT JUMPED WOULD LEAD TO A FEW SPORADIC CASES THEN STOP - SO THESE WERE PROBABLY THE TWO “SUCCESSES” OUT OF MANY JUMPS TO HUMANS
They also mention that ancestral COVID didn’t spread easily in humans - most cases that jumped over would have lead to a few sporadic cases that soon fizzled out - as happened often during the early stages of the pandemic as it moved to one country or another. There is a list on page 23 here, for instance there was an early case in France in December 2019 which didn’t lead to an outbreak in France.
So probably ancestral COVID jumped to humans many times from the market but only two of the lineages spread more widely, Lineage A and Lineage B.
THE TWO EARLIEST CASES OF THE 2ND LINEAGE (LINEAGE A) HAD LOCATION INFORMATION SHOWING THEY WERE CLOSE TO THE MARKET THOUGH NOT DIRECTLY LINKED
In the geolocation paper: The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic they go on to show that the two earliest Lineage A cases had no link to the market but both had location information that showed they were close to it. The first case got COVID before there was any known association of the unexplained pneumonia with the market and lived 2.31 km away.
The second case stayed in a hotel near the market for 5 days before their symptoms onset. They don’t know which hotel but it’s unlikely to be further away than 2.31 km.
There’s less than 1 chance in 1000 of both lineage A cases by chance being so close to the market if distributed randomly in the population of Wuhan.
Here is a tweet thread by the lead author of the paper about the tests they did to make sure it is a genuine signal of COVID’s origins.
https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey/status/1551949557205938176
Screenshots from the papers with highlighted text in my tweet thread here:
https://twitter.com/DoomsdayDebunks/status/1552099402403221504
WHICH SPECIES? EVIDENCE OF RACCOON DOGS FROM 2014 IN SAME CAGE AS 2019 +VE SAMPLES - AND RACCOON DOGS SEEN IN THE MARKET IN 2019 - BUT NOT PROOF OF RACCOON DOGS IN THAT SAME CAGE IN 2019
Now the main question is, which species?
They have evidence of raccoon dogs in oct, nov and photos from dec 2019. But evidence doesn't say where they were.
They have a photo of raccoon dogs in a specific cage from 2014 and +ve samples in same cage in 2019. The cage was still there in 2019 with +ve samples on live animal handling equipment.
So they know there were live animals in the market in 2019 and this was a cage for selling wild animals with +ve samples in animal handling equipment so it likely was selling live animals in 2019. They don't know specifically that they were raccoon dogs in it, but it's a possibility. Vendors can change or change what they sell.
Susceptible species sold in the market in Nov / Dec 2019:
Raccoon dog
Hog badger
Chinese bamboo rat
Red fox
Masked palm civet
Mink
Wild boar.
So it may be one of those. But there were others sold where the family or order is susceptible but the individual species sold is not known to be susceptible, so there is some possiiblity that it might be another animal not in that list.
Table 1 of: The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemi
If we know correctly where COVID came from and how it jumped to humans, it can help us make intelligent precautions to detect new coronaviruses that can infect humans faster in the future and stop them more easily once they jump over.
They give a more detailed table in the supplementary information.
They have photographic evidence of two of the species, red fox and raccoon dog, from December 2019, and reports of Chinese bamboo rat and hog badger from october and november.
WHO LAB LEAK HYPOTHESEIS IS NOT ABOUT AN ENGINEERED VIRUS - THAT WAS RULED OUT LONG AGO
They didn’t investigate the possibility that it is man-made since previous studies by experts have already shown that it is not man-made. Nobody could make such a virus, not with current technology. Experts are agreed. Although it is a coronavirus, it is not based on any previously used virus backbone and has a novel way of entering the cells, and no signs of engineering.
Meanwhile it fits into the evolutionary tree with coronaviruses already discovered in bats, pangolins, and humans. It probably split off from SARS some time around 1200 by the molecular clock. My post on the topic is here: COVID is not man-made or a bioweapon - we know from its gene sequence
The joint China - WHO report just says
We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome. . Virus origin / Origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (Page 118)
WHO LAB LEAK HYPOTHESIS IS ABOUT ACCIDENTAL RELEASE OF A VIRUS THEY DIDN’T KNOW HAD INFECTED BATS IN THE LAB - ALWAYS CONSIDERED UNLIKELY BECAUSE MUCH MORE CARE IS TAKEN BY LAB WORKERS THAN WILDLIFE FARM WORKERS
The lab leak hypothesis that's still viable but pretty much ruled out by this study is that
1, bats in the lab happened to have a virus they hadn't sequenced and
2. one of their bats bit a lab worker or some such event and so got to humans.
There were also no antibodies to SARS -CoV2 in the lab workers in Wuhan.
The WHO report never saw it as a likely hypothesis
I go into that here
From this new paper, this would need to happen twice, different strains and from this new study the second strain also would have to have a center of spread close to Huanan market.
At that point it becomes vastly improbable as lab workers would be far more likely to spread it at home to their household or to other more likely superspreader locations in Wuhan.
WHO DIDN’T RULE OUT THE LAB LEAK HYPOTHESIS IN THE ORIGINAL REPORT
Dr Tedris said at the time:
“Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy.”
WHO IN JUN 2022 SAY LAB LEAK THEORY IS STILL OPEN - BUT BEFORE THE RELEASE OF THIS NEW PAPER - 3 OUT OF 28 IN THEIR TEAM WERE OF THE OPINION THAT THERE IS NO NEW SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE TO QUESTION THE CONCLUSION OF THEIR EARLIER REPORT THAT IT’S LIKELY SPREAD FROM THE MARKET
This comes from before the release of this new paper.
Out of the 28 members of SAGO, 25 said that the lab leak hypothesis should continue to be investigated though they didn’t think it was likely.
Possibility of introduction of SARS-CoV-2 to the human population through a laboratory incident
The SAGO recognizes the work of the joint WHO-China team and the findings presented in their report.During the discussions of the SAGO, the SAGO has agreed, apart from three objections (see footnote)5, that it remains important to consider all reasonable scientific data that is available either through published or other official sources to evaluate the possibility of the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into the human population through a laboratory incident.
To support biosafety and biosecurity investigations into the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into the human population through a laboratory incident; the SAGO notes that there would need to be access to and review of the evidence of all laboratory activities (both in vitro and in vivo studies) with coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2-related viruses or close ancestors and the laboratory’s approach to implementation and improvement of laboratory biosafety and biosecurity. As it is not common practice to publish the institutional implementation of biosafety and biosecurity practices of individual laboratories in peer-reviewed scientific journals, additional information will need to be obtained and reviewed to make conclusive recommendations
Three of their members, from China, Russia and Brazil, thought there is not enough evidence to investigate it furhter at this stage.
It is noted that three members of SAGO (Dr Vladimir Dedkov, Dr Carlos Morel, Professor Yungui Yang) do not agree with the inclusion of further studies evaluating the possibility of introduction of SARS-CoV-2 to the human population through a laboratory incident in this preliminary report due to the fact that from their viewpoint, there is no new scientific evidence to question the conclusion of the WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part mission report published in March 2021.
List of members here:
WHO REPORT FOCUSES ON THE FARMED WILD ANIMALS ESPECIALLY CARNIVORES BRED FOR FUR, OR FOOD - AND RECOMMENDS FURTHER SAMPLING
They recommend looking closely at carnivores bred for fur, or food.
More focus is needed on studies involving carnivores in China, particularly those kept or bred in larger numbers for human exploitation, such as for food or fur production (racoon dogs, civet cats, mink) in different countries and regions.
• It is essential to determine husbandry sites that are sources of supply for the Huanan Seafood
Market and other wet markets in Wuhan. Studies should include validation of laboratory
methods, sampling method (including number of samples), positive controls such as by detection
of other viruses in sample collections and sharing of voucher samples and sub-samples of tested
specimens with international laboratories. Investigations and audits should be carried out to
determine the places and sizes of such breeding sites.
• There should be particular attention to culling activities before or after the first detection of
SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Animal products, either preserved (dry, smoked, fermented, sausages,
etc.) or potentially stored from culling activities or animal products from the period before the
outbreak should be identified and tested. Humans employed in breeding facilities or in the
downstream exploitation chain should be identified and serologically tested. Sera from such
persons should be shared with international laboratories for external verification.
Science gives reactions of other scientists to the report and ends:
Van Kerkhove closed the press conference by addressing the elephant in the corner: Can WHO, which is beholden to its member states and has little power to force China or any other country to cooperate, get it to do the studies recommended in the report? “We’re under no illusions that we can keep all of the politics out, but we will do our damnedest to keep focused on what needs to be done here,” she said. “We will continue to do everything we can until these questions are answered.”
. From ‘open-minded’ to ‘underwhelming,’ mixed reactions greet latest COVID-19 origin report
BIG HOPE - THAT THIS NEW PAPER CAN UNBLOCK THE POLITICAL LOGJAM THAT’S PREVENTING INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGINS OF COVID - NOT GOING TO MAKE MUCH DIFFERENCE TO CONSPIRACY THEORISTS, BUT IT CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE TO GOVERNMENTS AND THE EXPERTS THAT ADVISE THEM IN US - AND IN CHINA TOO
This probably won’t make much difference to start with to individuals who are prone to believe in conspiracy theories.
But the evidence is very solid and hopefully it will help at the level of international politics.
WHY MAINSTREAM SCIENTISTS NEVER THOUGHT THE VIRUS WAS MAN-MADE OR A CHIMERA
There wasn't really gain of function research. Wuhan labs just used the backbone of one virus to make a chimera wth spikes of other viruses that they hadn't yet been able to cultivate - and they expected the result to be less able to infect as usually a chimera of two viruses is less capable than a naturally evolved virus - it was a surprise that it turned out that a couple were more able. It wasn't an attempt to make it more infectious. They stopped that line of research after that experiment.
And COVID is definitely not a chimera virus and not man-made - it fits into the natural evolutionary tree with SARS, MERS, various other viruses including some new ones discovered later that were even closer found in a Laos cave. The Wuhan lab viruses were only 96% similar about as close as we are to a chimpanzee, there is no way they could have mutated to COVID.
. No NIH didn’t pay the Chinese to “make” COVID - rated by Washington Post as “Two Pinochios”
The whole thing about a "furin cleavage site" is junk science. Many natural coronaviruses have it and it readily mutates in / out. This graphic shows how about half the natural related coronaviruses have them it, the other half don't.
COVID could have got it by recombination with another coronavirus. For instance HKU1, and OC43 both have furin cleavage sites, two of the four coronaviruses that cause common colds (there are 12 other non coronavirus colds). Either might have donated it to COVID.
MERS also has a furin cleavage site.
More details here:
, COVID is not man-made or a bioweapon - we know from its gene sequence
See also:
The US claim was that it was accidentally leaked from the lab - a virus they didn’t know was there.
US EVIDENCE WAS TOP SECRET - THEN WHEN EVENTUALLY REVEALED WAS VERY WEAK - JUST THREE PEOPLE FROM THE LAB WHO THEY CLAIMED SEEKED HOSPITAL CARE AT THE START OF THE WINTER FLU SEASON IN WUHAN - IN CHINA PEOPLE GO TO HOSPITAL FOR CARE MUCH AS WE GO TO GPS IN UK / USA
Through to last year the lab leak theory had the support of the US government who claimed to have secret intelligence they never shared with the WHO that it leaked from a lab.
They still haven’t shared this evidence with the WHO or China.
The declassified report is very short, They all agreed that it was unlikely to be crated as a weapon and that if there was a leak the Chinese didn't know about it in advance.
In addition, the IC was able to reach broad agreement on several other key issues. We
judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon. Most agencies also assess with low
confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies
believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way. Finally, the IC
assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of
COVID-19 emerged.
Also only one of the Intelligence Communities thought there was moderate confidence in a lab leak
Four IC elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low confidence
that the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection was most likely caused by natural exposure to
an animal infected with it or a close progenitor virus—a virus that probably would be
more than 99 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2. These analysts give weight to China’s
officials’ lack of foreknowledge, the numerous vectors for natural exposure, and other
factors.One IC element assesses with moderate confidence that the first human infection with
SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably
involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of
Virology. These analysts give weight to the inherently risky nature of work on
coronaviruses.. us-intelligence-report-on-covid-19-origins
QUOTE
On the other side of the debate, one agency said it had concluded, with moderate confidence, that the pandemic was the result of “a laboratory-associated incident” in China.
...
The intelligence agencies all agreed that the virus was unlikely to have been created as any kind of biological weapon, the same stance the U.S. government has maintained for more than a year. The agencies also agreed that the initial exposures that caused the outbreak occurred “no later than November 2019,” according to the declassified conclusions.
Critical to the debate over the origins of the virus, American intelligence officials do not believe the Chinese officials knew about it at the time of the outbreak, the report said.
“The I.C. assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of Covid-19 emerged,” the declassified report said, using the initials for the intelligence community.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/politics/covid-origin-lab-leak.html
The only solid evidence they seem to have is evidence of three lab workers from Wuhan they claim were hospitalized with flu-like symptoms in January 2020.
But if they do have this evidence then this wasn’t shared in the declassified report.
The New York Times summary says:
Neither American intelligence officers, nor scientists around the world, have samples of the virus from the earliest known cases. That includes samples from a group of three Wuhan laboratory workers who became hospitalized with flulike symptoms last January.
This is very weak evidence, that three lab workers had flu symptoms in a large lab during the influenza season in China.
The word “hospitalized” here is confusing as it doesn’t mean severe. In China people go to hospital in the same situations that in the USA / UK they go to the local GP. It doesn’t mean they stayed in the hospital overnight or needed care only available in a hospital - unless they had evidence of that but the declassified report doesn’t even mention these people.
This is all very unsatisfactory - and it is obviously impossible for the WHO to evaluate this supposed evidence without being able to see it.
Anyway this lead to the US repeatedly pressing the Chinese to permit an international investigation of their labs under Trump - and then later Biden didn't step back from that claim but authorized the investigation to continue.
For details see:
THIS LEAD TO SEARCH IN ORIGINS STOPPING - WITH US ACCUSING CHINA OF COVERING UP A LAB LEAK AND CHINA CLAIMING BIZARRELY THAT IT ORIGINATED IN THE USA
That is the main reason the search into the origins of COVID broke off, with the US accusing the Chinese of covering up a lab leak and the Chinese accusing the US back with a bizarre theory that it originated in the USA.
Many people jumped to the conclusion that China was blocking an investigation because it really was a lab leak. But there is no reason to suppose that.
IMAGINE THE SITUATION REVERSED IF CHINA HAD CLAIMED IT HAD SECRET EVIDENCE THE PANDEMIC STARTED IN A US LAB AND THAT THIS NEEDED AN INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION OF THAT LAB
You can understand the Chinese response if you imagine it reversed with China requesting an international investigation of a US lab that they claimed was the origin of a pandemic.
Suppose China had said “Yes” to Trump or Biden’s request for an international investigation - based on top secret data that the US hadn’t shared with either China or the WHO
That would be tantamount to saying that the US intelligence was correct to say they had done a cover up and there would be doubts about whether the investigation woudl be impartial.
BREAK DOWN OF COOPERATION ON SCIENCE AFTER THE WHO-CHINA’S FIRST JOINT INVESTIGATION IN 2020 - CHINESE SCIENTISTS LIKELY STILL INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS BUT NOT PERMTTED TO SHARE THEIR DATA
Since then sadly cooperation has broken off betwen Chinese and international scientists.
Chinese scientists are likely still investigating the origin in China but not sharing data any more. The Chinese government doesn't permit them to share their data now or publish their research.
So this paper is based on data shared before that break in collaboration. Which makes it even more remarkable that they could find out so much based on data most of which has been available for analysis since 2020.
The WHO have tried to revive the joint scientific investigation several times but with no success.
IF US GOVERNMENT CAN AGREE COVID MOST LIKELY JUMPED FROM LIVE ANIMALS IN THE WUHAN WET MARKET- THIS COUD OPEN THE DOOR TO CHINA PERMITTING COLLABORATION AGAIN WITH INVESTIGATIONS DIRECTED BY THE SCIENCE RATHER THAN ESPIONAGE
Hopefully this will lay that to rest.
If the US government can agree that it jumped from live animals in the wet market in Wuhan then hopefully this can lead to China permitting collaboration between its researchers and international researchers again and a return of a joint China / International team to investigate the origins furhter and hopefully find out which animal it jumped from.
DATA THAT A NEW INVESTIGATION CAN LOOK AT - FROZEN CARCASSES, BLOOD BANKS, ANIMAL WASTE, SEWAGE SAMPLES, WILD ANIMAL POPULATIONS IN CHINA AND NEARBY COUNTRIES ETC
There is data they could still look at. Frozen carcases from the wildlife farms. Blood banks from areas where the wildlife were farmed. It probably jumped to humans multiple times as the original COVID wasn't very transmissible relying on superspreading events and often a chain of COVID would start up in a new country and just fizzle out - happened several times. There is clear evidence of a very early case in France on December 27 2019 which had no direct contact with China so there was an early cluster in France which spread to at least one other person. . He is a fishmonger and his wife works in a retail shop near the airport so may have got it from travellers from China.
Early cases also in Brazil and Italy. I go into them here:
To add to that a few more early human cases are mentioned on page 23 here including a skin biopsy from Italy from November 2019 tested +ve with PCR.
So - there might be early cases in southern China for instance where people worked on the wildlife farms for the wildlife later sold in Wuhan.
QUOTE A principal ask in light of the new preprints is to collect and analyse samples from farmers and wildlife at farms that supplied the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan — to which many early COVID-19 cases were traced and where coronavirus samples from January 2020 were concentrated — as well as from market vendors. The WHO made these suggestions a year ago, but the studies either haven’t been conducted or haven’t been published. The scientific community has grown frustrated with the wait as the world seeks answers to help prevent future pandemics.
QUOTE Some Chinese scientists say that they, too, would like to see more origin studies, but that the topic is politically sensitive. In March 2020, a directive from the Chinese government — highlighted by the Associated Press — instructed researchers at universities, companies and medical institutions to have all studies on COVID-19 vetted by government research units and then published under the direction of public opinion teams. Those who don’t follow procedures, the document warned, “shall be held accountable”.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00732-0
There is a long list of recomendations of other things they can do such as to analyse animal products from the animal farms from 2019 and sewage samples from 2019:
Then - they can also research in the other direction - close relatives found in bats in Laos, even closer than the samples already known from the Wuhan laboratories.
They might find closer relatives in bat caves in China and so get a handle on it from the other direction.
Here is a selection from many recommendations the WHO have made
Combine molecular and global distribution data and other metadata of potentially relevant animal hosts. This will be important because many coronaviruses that are phylogenetically related to SARS-CoV-2 have been discovered from Rhinolophus species (horseshoe bats) around the world, particularly in Asia, including South-East Asia, where retrospective tests of samples collected from Rhinolophus bats should be conducted
There should be particular attention to culling activities before or after the first detection of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Animal products, either preserved (dry, smoked, fermented, sausages, etc.) or potentially stored from culling activities or animal products from the period before the outbreak should be identified and tested. Humans employed in breeding facilities or in the downstream exploitation chain should be identified and serologically tested. Sera from such persons should be shared with international laboratories for external verification.
In testing of potential animal reservoir hosts, including intermediate hosts, it is advisable to specifically investigate sequences of the receptor binding site (ACE-2 receptor), the polybasic furin recognition motif at the S1/S2 domain border and other elements typical for SARS-CoV-2 that could have contributed to the formation of the latter by processes of recombination or sequential mutation
Analyse the persistence and survival of SARS-CoV-2 in environmental farming samples (e.g. wastewater, mink farm waste and the surrounding environment).
Coronaviruses phylogenetically related to SARS-CoV-2 have been discovered in Rhinolophus species (horseshoe bats) around the world, particularly in South-East Asia. Retrospective tests of samples collected from Rhinolophus bats should be carried out globally and in particular in Asia and South-East Asia.
Conduct a behavioral risk study on the human-animal-environment interface of the Huanan market workers, vendors and Hunan community, including infected and noninfected groups, from September to December 2019
Many more recommendations, pages 28 - 32 /scientific-advisory-group-on-the-origins-of-novel-pathogens/sago-report-09062022.pdf
So that's the hope, that this can lead to the USA and China and other countries to stop politicizing the investigation of the origins of COVID and let the scientists do their work. There are lots of things they can analyse. An investigation like this takes years to do it properly but there is hope to find out much more.
ACTUALLY CHINESE HEALTH WORKERS ACTED WITH REMARKABLE SPEED TO CONTAIN THE VIRUS IN A WAY THAT THE US COULD NEVER HAVE DONE WITH ITS LEVEL OF PREPAREDNESS IN SPRING 2020
One thing that doesn’t help here is the whole context of the US trying to blame China for the pandemic. This is not the normal response to a pandemic. We don’t blame Nigeria for monkeypox, or the Congo for ebola, or Saudi Arabia for MERS or Mexico for H1N1 flu.
The US tried to blame China for not stopping the pandemic quickly enough. This was basically to cover up their own weak response. But this is counter-productive.
China had a very weak response to SARS in 2003. The reason China had such a strong response to COVID is becuase of its previous experience of what went wrong in its response to SARS. Even with their natural tendency to keep things secret and not share, which went so wrong with SARS they knew from that experience how important it is to share data during the early stages of a pandemic and they did so.
Also they were very alert for cases of atypical pneumonia. They spotted COVID long before they had PCR tests for it, based on an unusual pattern of pneumonias, which triggered an alert system they put in place after SARS.
But the USA didn’t have that previous experience and they hadn’t learned from China.
In March 2020, the USA had the fully sequenced genome, PCR tests etc but missed huge outbreaks in New York and throughout the USA, outbreaks far larger than the early outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019.
It is not easy to spot something like this. The Chinese health workers did a remarkable job. They were alert to COVID because of previous experience of SARS.
The health workers in Wuhan were like health workers everywhere - doing their best to save lives.
40,000 of them headed for Wuhan when everyone else wanted otu of lockdown.
23 of them died fighting COVID.
Short video about this:
https://twitter.com/DoomsdayDebunks/status/1438911085436936200
See also
CHINESE HEALTH WORKERS AND EPIDEMIOLOGISTS AS GREAT INNOVATORS CONTROLLING THE EPIDEMIC IN WUHAN IN WAYS THAT NO COUNTRY EVER ATTEMPTED BEFORE
Some US experts interviewed by the Washington Post 4 days after the Wuhan Lockdown started said such things as that China
“couldn’t have any sound public health advice”.
This seemed sensible at the time. It was based on our previous attempts at controllling influenza with lockdowns which had never worked. Unprecedented Chinese quarantine could backfire, experts say
However, it soon became clear that the lockdown saved hundreds of thousands of cases in China.
A couple of months later, experts were severely criticising China in a Nature paper for not doing the lockdown three weeks earlier! This was near the start of what has become an ongoing tendency for some Western academics and politicians to blame China for the pandemic. By no means all, there are plenty do appreciate what they did, but some talk like this:
“The delay of China to act is probably responsible for this world event,”
…
“Implementing the measures 3 weeks earlier, from the beginning of January, would have cut the number of infections to 5% of the total."
This is the paper: What China’s coronavirus response can teach the rest of the world
I go into this in more detail later in this article.
But this is very unfair towards China. I doubt if anywhere else could have controlled it as China did. If the pandemic had started in the US, they would likely have not even considered a lockdown or the massive test, trace, isolate strategy - because the experts in the US at the time mainly said it wouldn’t work.
They forget that at the time that China did this response nobody had ever succeeded at controlling a virus in that way ever before.
Even after China showed the way, we saw many examples of other countries like Italy, the UK and the USA, who delayed and delayed and did their responses far too late.
FEW COUNTRIES RESPONDED AS FAST AS CHINA - TAIWAN, SINGAPORE, NORTH KOREA AND BHUTAN
Really only Taiwan acted faster than China, they started their response right away on the day after the novel disease was announced - not a lockdown but immediate travel restrictions.
. Example of Taiwan - never had a lockdown and only 10 deaths ever from COVID
Other ones that were very prompt in their early responses were
Singapore (was testing everyone with flu-like illness by 28th Jan), see: COVID19 in Singapore shows there can't be a hidden population of symptomless superspreaders
Bhutan (three weeks quarantine for anyone entering the country soon after their first case). See: Bhutan - small country with three quarters of a million people - kept COVID19 out with quarantine and closed borders
I’d also (controversially) add
North Korea (hard border control which continues to this day) - I’ve never believed that they have it except maybe a few cases got it in early on soon stopped - e.g. why would they be so careful they don’t even send a team to the Tokyo Olympics if they have COVID everywhere?
Meanwhile there are many examples of very weak responses early on from the US, UK, Italy, Spain, Iran, Brazil, etc etc.
But for some reason, the international attention is all on China and asking why China didn’t act sooner! The way I see it the question should be - why did China act so fast?
HOW THE CHINESE HEALTH WORKERS AND THE PEOPLE SAVED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CASES IN EARLY SPRING 2020 AND GAVE THE REST OF THE WORLD A BREATHING SPACE TO CONTROL THE VIRUS - IN AN ALL OF GOVERNMENT ALL OF SOCIETY APPROACH
I think we need to recognize what China did here. Not just the huge innovation of doing something never done before but all the individual people who worked together to make it happen.
For the WHO- China joint investigation, the international researchers went into Wuhan in the middle of the lockdown to research into how they were stopping the pandemic.
Dr Bruce Aylward:
"So when you look at the difference between what the curve may have been like and what was actually like, that probably represents hundreds of thousands of Chinese people who have benefited from this tremendous effort.
This asymmetrical curve shows the Chinese blunted their epidemic.
Before the lockdown and massive scale up of test, trace, isolate, many Western experts told them this was impossible.
We all benefited from this early control of COVID.
Now this seems ordinary. Back then it was groundbreaking.
As Dr Bruce Aylward put it, 14:28 into the press briefing
We're the only train that stopped so that six of us could get off that train, and be be part of this. And as I got off another group got off and I thought we were the only people allowed to get off in Wuhan and this was a group that have these little jackets on and a flag it was a medical team coming in from Guangdong to be part of the 40,000 health care workers from other parts of China that have come in many of whom volunteered to go into Wuhan and help with the response.
But the the level of collective action and the striking part is you pull into the city of skyscrapers and massive boulevards and this this is not a village the city of 15 million people a modern city and as you as you drive into the city in the dead of night with the lights on it's a ghost town but behind every window in every skyscraper there are people cooperating with this response.
People said there's a big presence forcing them. There isn't. Invisible it's staggering and every person you talk to there has a sense that they're mobilized in a war against this virus and they're organized so that's the second big thing this collective action.
We are more familiar with this now, in country after country, citizens co-operating with lockdown. But back then it was extraordinary, nobody realized this was possible. Indeed at the time many didn’t believe the reports that the Chinese citizens were really doing this. Or if they did, they believed viral false rumours that they were locked into their skyscrapers and forcibly prevented from leaving.
IMAGINE WHAT THIS INTERNATIONAL BLAME OF CHINA FEELS LIKE IF YOU ARE ONE OF THE 40,000 DOCTORS, NURSES AND OTHER EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAMS THAT HEADED INTO DANGER IN WUHAN TO STOP THE EPIDEMIC
There are many good people in China. The doctors, and nurses are people who chose to dedicate their lives to caring for others and saving lives in China just as in any other country in the world. In Wuhan,they were saving lives often at great personal risk.
While Westerners for the most part were doing their best to try to get out of Wuhan before the lockdown began, there were 40,000 Chinese doctors, nurses and quick response teams traveling in the opposite direction heading straight for Wuhan into the lockdown to help save lives.
These health workers were there to fight a new and barely understood disease, headed into a lockdown, knowing they would be overwhelmed by patients and unable to leave. Others were construction workers, rapidly building hospitals to treat them all and many others in an “all of society all of government” approach.
By April 3, 23 of those health workers had died of COVID..
Imagine if you are an ordinary - or rather, extraordinary Chinese health worker - one of the 40,000 health workers who headed into a lockdown in Wuhan to fight anovel dangerous pathogen at risk to your own life.
What wouldt all this international blame of China feel like to you?
COMMENDING THE CHINESE WHO HELPED STOP THEIR EPIDEMIC BUILDS BRIDGES THAT WILL HELP - NOT HINDER - ACTION ON OTHER ISSUES SUCH AS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE OF ETHNIC MINORITIES
Commending China and the Chinese for what it does well is not the same as condoning human righs abuse
If we were to praise the epidemiologists and health workers and the common people in China who did so much early on to stop the pandemic - we would build bridges with the many good people in China, not antagonize them. We would then be in a far better position politically to put pressure on China to end its human rights abuses. With solidarity with the many good people in China.
See my
The US weren’t alert to it even after it was a known disease spreading through the world. The countries that were most prepared were ones with previous experience of SARS or with medical professionals in the government (Taiwan and Bhutan both had medical professionals in high positions in the government).
Hopefully in the future if there ever is a new pandemic originates in the USA with unexplained pneumonias like this one, the US will be more alert.
The WHO and others are doing a lot of work to try to ensure future preparedness. But in spring 2020, the US were not prepared and they would never have spotted a similar outbreak as quickly as China.
China did have a problem with not listening to whistle blowers but that would have only saved one day in their response. Since then they have put in place whistleblower protection for situations like this to prevent it happening again.
China did manage to contain COVID too - and in doing that gave the rest of the world a valuable few months to prepare. They also protected the Chinese economy, the only country to have GDP growth in 2020 which helped the entire world to weather the pandemic more easily.
Only Hubei province in China had a full lockdown. Most of the provinces, which are as large as entire European countries, had no lockdowns and they contained it just with rigorous contact tracing.
Taiwan was similar indeed it had a more rapid response than China.
New Zealand and Australia, Vietnam, Laos, many countries showed that it was possible to stop ancestral COVID with rigorous testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine.
YES THE UK COULD HAVE STOPPED COVID TOO - WE HAD MANY OPPORTUNITIES - BUT WE ARE USED TO FLU WHICH CAN’T BE STOPPED AND NOT TO SARS SO WE DIDNT HAVE THE “MUSCLE MEMORY” TO TRY TO STOP A RESPIRATORY DISEASE WITH CONTACT TRACING
We get people in the UK saying it would have never worked here. But we never tried.
We only used test trace isolate towards the end of a very long lockdown.
At one point in summer 2020, our only cases were in Leicester, and in a meat packing factory in Wales. No new cases in Scotland for a short while.
We COULD probably have eliminated it in the UK if we'd done what New Zealand did. Which in turn would have made it easier for other countries to eliminate it. Not possible now.
But it was holiday season, UK wanted to let people head off to holidays in Spain, never took Test Trace Isolate seriously, never properly explained the importance of isolating in your room to protect your own household if you got COVID and we lost the opportunity.
The world had 3 main opportunities to eliminate COVID.
1. in Feb / Mar 2020 when China and Taiwan had stopped it completely, also Vietnam.
2. in spring / summer 2020 especially if we'd done TTI rigorously during the lockdowns.
3. In late 2020 to 2021 with global vaccination.
When first introduced
- Pfizer / Moderna were very effective at stopping transmission
- COVID not very transmissible
- WHO called for compulsory licenses under TRIPS and technology transfer to rapidly vaccinate the world.
- WHO said we might eliminate COVID with vaccines.
If the rest of the world had done the same, rigorous testing, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, the world would be COVID free.
As it is, ~4 million people in China lived through to 2022 who would have died earlier.
Also helped save world economy from deeper recession.
Most regions of China, each as large as a European country in population, haven't had to impose lockdown yet. It's like the whole of Europe + Russia + North Africa having lockdowns in Istanbul + Moscow in 2020 and again in 2022 and rare 2-week lockdowns in Moscow.
See also
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-aylward.html
IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) the Chinese government too is to be commended for the way it responded. If the health workers had fought it without the support of the governmetn it wouldn’t have worked so well
We saw the same all of society all of government approach in New Zealand, Taiwan, Bhutan, a few other places.
But so few countries were able to achieve it and China had the biggest challenge of all here.
This is NOT to commend them for human rights abusese or treatment of ethnic minorities!
And they did a very bad response to SARS. But over a decade later their response to COVID shows that they learnt many lessons from that.
In the West I hope we similarly learn from this so we are better prepared in the future.
Hope this helps in a small way with bridge building. We need to move on - yes - but also to learn from what happened to build in resilience for future pandemics.
There are things every country did right and mistakes.
The US and Europe were very fast in developing vaccines. Once they realized the need they were fast at developing the lateral flow tests.
China has been rather slower at vaccine development - and it’s vaccines haven’t been so effective. It was remarkably fast at developing the first PCR tests however.
COVID SIMILAR IN SEVERITY FOR VACCINATED OR PREVIOUSLY INFECTED POPULATIONS TO A FLU OUTBREAK - BUT FOUR TIMES OR MORE A YEAR AND LONG COVID RISK - NOT GOOD ENOUGH - NEED BETTER VACCINES
Right now with populations that are well vaccinated, it is similar in severity to a flu outbreak, but one that happens four times a year or more instead of once a year and also with a small % risk of long COVID every time you get it, far higher than the risks of similar effects from flu.
That’s not good enough, we need better vaccines than that. They are on their way. The next generation mucosal vaccines may well stop it early on before it even gets into your lungs, in your upper respiratory tract - nose, throat, mouth. That also may well stop it infecting others.
Three of these are in phase 3 at present (with one already approved by Iran). Another one is about to move to phase 3 (Codagenix).
THREE TYPES OF IMMUNITY - VACCINES IN DEVELOPMENT TO TRIGGER ALL THREE
Our bodies have three types of immunity and the best way to stop a disease is to target all three. The vaccines so far have only targeted antibodies.
T-cell immunity - especially effective after the disease has established itself in your body - seeks out and destroys cells that got converted by the virus into virus producing factories
Mucosal immunity - fights the virus right away in the nasal passages - this helps you defeat the virus before it even enters your body and it also is especially good for stopping transmission to others - these are the Igg antibodies
Antibody immunity (Iga antibodies) - the ones that nearly all our vaccines so far target. These are small Y shaped molecules that latch onto the virus and stops it entering cells - this works to stop it once it gets into the lungs and the rest of the body but doesn’t do so much in the nasal passages
Future 2nd & 3rd generation vaccines should have more effectiveness at preventing the early stages of infection (antibody mediated or sterilizing immunity). Others improve t-cells. Mucosal immunity may be most important of all for stopping transmission. If we don't address transmission, we'll be chasing variants forever
We don't need perfection. Taiwan and China could likely control COVID outbreaks with a vaccine much less than 95% effective at stopping transmission. Rigorous contact tracing, surge testing, and then mask wearing and distancing during a local outbreak might be enough at << 95%
So as vaccines get better it will be easier and easier to control COVID even very transmissible variants like Omicron. Then we may reach a situation like the measles vaccine where we can keep levels of the virus very low mainly through vaccination with little else by way of public health measures.
NEXT GEN VACCINES ARE OUR “OUT” FOR THIS PANDEMIC - BEING DEVELOPED MAINLY THROUGH BACKING OF LOW AND MIDDLE INCOME ECONOMIES AND THE WHO
The next stage is to develop 2nd generation and 3rd generation vaccines including the mucosal vaccines. This surprisingly is being driven mainy by weaker and middle income countries. The advanced economies like the US, Europe etc so far haven’t been able to unlock funding for big clinical trials of the next generation vaccines beause of their “live with the virus” strategy.
This has its postive side though.
Most of the new vaccines are going to have licenses that make them affordable to weaker economies, or even royalty free. Also - they are likely to be approved by weaker economies and used by them first, because of the lack of interest in the stronger economies.
That means that thank goodness, we won’t have the same vaccine inequity we had in 2020 - 2021 when many weaker economies, especially in Africa, had almost no access to the vaccines until a year after vaccination started in the UK.
We now have so much vaccine production capacity in the weaker and middle income countries - and also capabilities to test and develop the vaccines. So the next gen vaccines will be rolled out globally and may well go to the weaker economies first.
That will help bring COVID under control far more effectively once we have vaccines that are able to interrupt a signfiicant % of transmission.
I will expand this into a new article when I get some time
Meanwhile see my
The pandemic has also lead to a huge increase in the capabilities to test for viruses and to make vaccines - with weaker economies now well supplied through WHO, COVAX can supply any vaccines they need, the main issue is now distribution inside the country for some weaker economies.
This is something that will help going forward.
The WHO warn about the importance of keeping our capabilities now that we have them and not closing down testing centers etc, to be ready to ramp up again fast if we need it and to keep alert to new variants. It is nire difficult to investigate new ariants now because of the reduced teseting in many countries.CONTACT ME VIA PM OR ON FACEBOOK OR EMAIL
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See Latest short debunks for new short debunks
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TIPS FOR DEALING WITH DOOMSDAY FEARS
If suicidal or helping someone suicidal see my:
BLOG: Supporting someone who is suicidal
If you have got scared by any of this, health professionals can help. Many of those affected do get help and find it makes a big difference.
They can’t do fact checking, don’t expect that of them. But they can do a huge amount to help with the panic, anxiety, maladaptive responses to fear and so on.
Also do remember that therapy is not like physical medicine. The only way a therapist can diagnose or indeed treat you is by talking to you and listening to you. If this dialogue isn’t working for whatever reason do remember you can always ask to change to another therapist and it doesn’t reflect badly on your current therapist to do this.
Also check out my Seven tips for dealing with doomsday fears based on things that help those scared, including a section about ways that health professionals can help you.
I know that sadly many of the people we help can’t access therapy for one reason or another - usually long waiting lists or the costs.
There is much you can do to help yourself. As well as those seven tips, see my:
BLOG: Breathe in and out slowly and deeply and other ways to calm a panic attack
BLOG: Tips from CBT
— might help some of you to deal with doomsday anxieties
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https://ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/trump-abortion-olc-lawyers/