https://apple.news/AlwSvtnkcSSGoTPIiMsquxQ

Wall Street Journal.

Old News, I think, but relevant.

I think these viruses are the new version of nuke and nuke delivery systems for this new Cold War.

I had this discussion with a friend not long ago. The west still thinks waging war consists of brute force vs. brute force.

The rest of the “organized” world has moved on to fighting much less expensive but more effective wars. Terrorism and guerrilla tactics, compromat, blackmail, buying foreign politicians to affect policy in your favour, surreptitiously applying bacteriological and virological weapons.

9/11 is a prime example; OBL knocked down two skyscrapers for basically chump change, killing a couple of thousand people. The U.S. overreacted by severely restricting the freedoms of its own population (to this very day) at a cost of trillions of dollars and then lied to start an incredibly expensive war of retribution simply to show voters that they ‘did something about it’. That the bad guys won that round is indisputable.

Wars will never stop, they are simply evolutionary and fundamental to every species. But how they are waged is changing, and frankly, the bad guy’s are winning - not that I see any ‘good guys’ to speak of. It seems the planet is just evolving into a cluster fuck of autocracies supported by a handful of oligarchs.

seems to repeat cycles don't it.
build up get lazy screw with everyone till someone makes a mistake, kill 20% of the population settle down prosper get stupid again and rinse.

Yet Fauci still maintains an animal to human jump as most plausible theory.

I don't have an opinion about the origin of the virus but why would anybody think this was an "attack" by China on the US when the virus ravaged their country as well?

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:
I don't have an opinion about the origin of the virus but why would anybody think this was an "attack" by China on the US when the virus ravaged their country as well?

These things, whether produced by china, us or some other country are done so as a military weapon. One thing beagle torturer Fauci was right about is this won't be the last time a 'pandemic' happens.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:
I don't have an opinion about the origin of the virus but why would anybody think this was an "attack" by China on the US when the virus ravaged their country as well?

That is just it…they didn’t let it affect them as we did. People are just a commodity to the CCP. They imposed hard quarantines locking people in complexes. If you were sick with it enough to look terminal or expensive to treat they euthanized you. Plenty of examples of them taking people off ventilators and leaving them to die like a fish in a cooler out on the net.

It affected us way more. It weakened us as apposed to them. This is their philosophy…chip away at us. They could care less about losing a few 100k people.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:
I don't have an opinion about the origin of the virus but why would anybody think this was an "attack" by China on the US when the virus ravaged their country as well?

That is just it…they didn’t let it affect them as we did. People are just a commodity to the CCP. They imposed hard quarantines locking people in complexes. If you were sick with it enough to look terminal or expensive to treat they euthanized you. Plenty of examples of them taking people off ventilators and leaving them to die like a fish in a cooler out on the net.

It affected us way more. It weakened us as apposed to them. This is their philosophy…chip away at us. They could care less about losing a few 100k people.

Pat Buchanan wrote something at the time, broaching the idea that the release was deliberate and that then-president Trump was aware of this.
I can not find the article on the web now.

I was not aware that DOE ran our Level 4 bio-labs, seems like an odd way to run a railroad.
I still don't understand why we moved ours from Plum Island to Manhattan KS.

Wuhan doesn't have the only wet market in China, just the only one next to a Level 4 pathogen lab with a Level 2 lab in the same labor market. Hmmm....

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:
I don't have an opinion about the origin of the virus but why would anybody think this was an "attack" by China on the US when the virus ravaged their country as well?

That is just it…they didn’t let it affect them as we did. People are just a commodity to the CCP. They imposed hard quarantines locking people in complexes. If you were sick with it enough to look terminal or expensive to treat they euthanized you. Plenty of examples of them taking people off ventilators and leaving them to die like a fish in a cooler out on the net.

It affected us way more. It weakened us as apposed to them. This is their philosophy…chip away at us. They could care less about losing a few 100k people.

Oh brother. Your own statements show the absurdity of this argument. I agree that we didn't respond to it like them in the sense that we didn't nail people's doors shut. That was China over-reacting, not us. I also disagree with the premise that the pandemic somehow weakened the United States more than it did China. Weakened us in what sense? The economy is humming along like a nuclear reactor, unemployment is at its lowest in generations, etc etc etc.

Weakened us how?

Weakened us by two things-

Severely disrupting our economy.

Giving an occasion to split our people over the response to the crisis.

Seems they were rather effective.

As to the DOE exposing this position, it does strike me as strange that they release it, given they are not really involved.

Is this the actual high level opinion of the government that they are officially minimizing or is it someone in DOE’s personal opinion?

I have no idea.

It’s plausible, but I don’t see proof being offered here…

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
Yet Fauci still maintains an animal to human jump as most plausible theory.

Do you know how much info Fauci has from the U. S. investigations or is he simply offering that possibility based on what info is available to him?
Quite likely that he also has an ulterior motive for doing so. Has it been proven beyond any shadow of doubt that we supported gain of function research at Wuhan?

What I've seen referred to is nothing more than a few hundred grand supposedly granted. IMO I don't think that would buy much of anything in the way of real results for gain of function research. Anyone got evidence that we were secretly or otherwise dumping tens or hundreds of millions of dollars into the Wuhan facility?

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Weakened us by two things-

Severely disrupting our economy.

Giving an occasion to split our people over the response to the crisis.

Seems they were rather effective.

As to the DOE exposing this position, it does strike me as strange that they release it, given they are not really involved.

Is this the actual high level opinion of the government that they are officially minimizing or is it someone in DOE’s personal opinion?

I have no idea.

It’s plausible, but I don’t see proof being offered here…

As I already noted....the economy is gangbusters right now.

As for our nation being divided....I don't think the chinese had anything to do with that....more like idiot republicans who elected Donald Trump to be potus.

Why do so many people feel they are worse off, if the economy is such gangbusters? Inflation?

The furin cleavage site (RRAR) distinguishes SARS‐CoV‐2 from SARS‐CoV and other CoVs. This and the addition of proline residue at the start of furin cleavage site pretty much guarantees this virus is NOT wild-type and was manipulated in a laboratory.

quote:

we didn't nail people's doors shut. That was China over-reacting, not us.

China did not over-react. They knew what they were dealing with. They simply acted as the CCP playbook dictates…to not care about general humanity and carry on in best interest of their imperialist goals…at all costs.

We did over-react in many ways. China basically kept everything running in their country and stamped out flare-ups with an iron fist.

It really had zero effect on China’s economy except for the loss of markets.

quote:

the economy is gangbusters right now.

The economy is gang-busters right now for people like me…cause inflation and high interest can’t hurt me. In fact…I like high interest.

As to the general population…it is not quite back to where they were left in 2019.

China is still a class based system.
anyone not in the elite class is dirt.

peasant is still a class over there and are considered nothing more than oxygen abusers to anyone above their social status.
they die? [shrug] they die,, big deal there's more.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Weakened us by two things-

Severely disrupting our economy.

Giving an occasion to split our people over the response to the crisis.

Seems they were rather effective.

As to the DOE exposing this position, it does strike me as strange that they release it, given they are not really involved.

Is this the actual high level opinion of the government that they are officially minimizing or is it someone in DOE’s personal opinion?

I have no idea.

It’s plausible, but I don’t see proof being offered here…

As I already noted....the economy is gangbusters right now.

As for our nation being divided....I don't think the chinese had anything to do with that....more like idiot republicans who elected Donald Trump to be potus.

You mean the WOKE, stupid, left had nothing to do with it?

How did the US Department of Energy acquire expertise on bio-weapons or biology generally.

I think I'd give weight to their opinion on nuclear energy though.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
The furin cleavage site (RRAR) distinguishes SARS‐CoV‐2 from SARS‐CoV and other CoVs. This and the addition of proline residue at the start of furin cleavage site pretty much guarantees this virus is NOT wild-type and was manipulated in a laboratory.

And where did you acquire expertise on bio-weapons and human viruses?

quote:

human viruses

Biochemically, viruses are viruses. As to biochemistry, I am well educated. But you forget…according to Fauci this was naturally occurring zoonosis. Regardless of whether it was laboratory manipulated…all coronavirus infections are zoonotic when they first emerge. SARS CoV-1 IS an animal virus.

Besides all of that…I am well trained, practiced, and accomplished in learning science and I like to read, study, and comprehend.

And according to me, a well known expert on viruses.

There white ones, black ones, yellow ones, brown ones and every conceivable color you can imagine!

Some are make some are females too!

At least the pangolins and bats are off the hook now.

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
At least the pangolins and bats are off the hook now.

No they are not.

Remember what Prince Philip said?

If it flies, floats, walks, slithers or swims, the Chinks will eat it!

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

human viruses

Biochemically, viruses are viruses. As to biochemistry, I am well educated. But you forget…according to Fauci this was naturally occurring zoonosis. Regardless of whether it was laboratory manipulated…all coronavirus infections are zoonotic when they first emerge. SARS CoV-1 IS an animal virus.

Besides all of that…I am well trained, practiced, and accomplished in learning science and I like to read, study, and comprehend.

Which is why it is so puzzling that you are at odds with the majority of the scientific community on this issue, most of whom believe that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27...t-matters/index.html

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

human viruses

Biochemically, viruses are viruses. As to biochemistry, I am well educated. But you forget…according to Fauci this was naturally occurring zoonosis. Regardless of whether it was laboratory manipulated…all coronavirus infections are zoonotic when they first emerge. SARS CoV-1 IS an animal virus.

Besides all of that…I am well trained, practiced, and accomplished in learning science and I like to read, study, and comprehend.

Which is why it is so puzzling that you are at odds with the majority of the scientific community on this issue, most of whom believe that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27...t-matters/index.html

Bullshit!

The Chink scientists were financed by America to develop viruses for warfare!

Some escaped, and neither the Chinks nor the Yanks want to admit their crimes!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

human viruses

Biochemically, viruses are viruses. As to biochemistry, I am well educated. But you forget…according to Fauci this was naturally occurring zoonosis. Regardless of whether it was laboratory manipulated…all coronavirus infections are zoonotic when they first emerge. SARS CoV-1 IS an animal virus.

Besides all of that…I am well trained, practiced, and accomplished in learning science and I like to read, study, and comprehend.

Which is why it is so puzzling that you are at odds with the majority of the scientific community on this issue, most of whom believe that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27...t-matters/index.html

Bullshit!

The Chink scientists were financed by America to develop viruses for warfare!

Some escaped, and neither the Chinks nor the Yanks want to admit their crimes!

Riiight. So, the US paid the Chinese to develop a virus so the Chinese could cause a pandemic in the US? Now, it's all coming together for me! Diabolically clever!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

human viruses

Biochemically, viruses are viruses. As to biochemistry, I am well educated. But you forget…according to Fauci this was naturally occurring zoonosis. Regardless of whether it was laboratory manipulated…all coronavirus infections are zoonotic when they first emerge. SARS CoV-1 IS an animal virus.

Besides all of that…I am well trained, practiced, and accomplished in learning science and I like to read, study, and comprehend.

Which is why it is so puzzling that you are at odds with the majority of the scientific community on this issue, most of whom believe that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27...t-matters/index.html

It seems to me that info like this should be common basic knowledge among experts in virology and if true it should be an open and shut situation about its origin.

Most virology experts probably have no real opinion on how it came about. The only ones whose opinions should matter are the ones actually studying the question.

Is it possible for it to have been developed artificially?
Yes.

Is it possible for it to have made some sort of jump from animals to humans naturally?
Yes.

We don’t know.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the government does know and doesn’t want it known by the public for some reason, the government does often hide things as state secrets… and too much politicking can be done as long as there is no official finding, so the government is probably happy with the status quo.

But CNN and its sources are hardly reliable here. Did CNN send a reporter to talk with every person with a PhD in virology or molecular biology (or at least 51% of them?)

I doubt it. So how do they get that a “majority” believe any particular position?

I wondered the same thing Doc.
Remember the 97% of the scientists agree, climate change is man made.
That was after they threw out some 1800 of the scientists views, they got what they wanted for a number.

Chris Wray tells Brett Baer today: “Almost assuredly it was a lab leaked virus as all intelligence supports it and the FBI believe it was.” (Paraphrased)

Robert Redfield said from the beginning it was likely a lab-manipulated virus.

The biochemistry mentioned above makes it likely to be genetically manipulated.

quote:

Wuhan doesn't have the only wet market in China, just the only one next to a Level 4 pathogen lab with a Level 2 lab in the same labor market

I recollect being roundly ctriticized for pointing this out in early 2020,
and
that the L2 lab was only about 300 meters from that particular market.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
The furin cleavage site (RRAR) distinguishes SARS‐CoV‐2 from SARS‐CoV and other CoVs. This and the addition of proline residue at the start of furin cleavage site pretty much guarantees this virus is NOT wild-type and was manipulated in a laboratory.

Are there any other similar unique markers that would shed light on the manipulated vs natural origin question?

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
At least the pangolins and bats are off the hook now.

No they are not.

Remember what Prince Philip said?

If it flies, floats, walks, slithers or swims, the Chinks will eat it!

Speaking of which there was a show on the Outdoor channel last with Steve "Meateater" Rinella as one participant where they featured dining on muskrats. I can skin and clean rabbits or squirrels even messy ones, but I don't think I could ever muster the courage to eat muskrat. Moe power to the Chinese. Some of the Hmongs that got sent here would eat anything that moves.

Regardless, corona came out of China, it's actually their fault, they did it. And they're not being held accountable.

I don't get it.

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:
Regardless, corona came out of China, it's actually their fault, they did it. And they're not being held accountable.

I don't get it.

+1

quote:

Originally posted by ANTELOPEDUNDEE:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
The furin cleavage site (RRAR) distinguishes SARS‐CoV‐2 from SARS‐CoV and other CoVs. This and the addition of proline residue at the start of furin cleavage site pretty much guarantees this virus is NOT wild-type and was manipulated in a laboratory.

Are there any other similar unique markers that would shed light on the manipulated vs natural origin question?

That is a question being looked at by many.

SARS CoV-2 is uniquely extremely well suited to infect humans. Its affinity for the human ACE2 receptor seems too dominant to be nationally occurring — especially with no natural host being found. In other words it was “perfectly” suited to infect and spread in the human population.

This was combined with the furin cleavage site found in its RNA make-up…make it unlikely to be a naturally occurring virus making a coincidental leap.

Work on this will be done for decades. I believe it will eventually be proven beyond a shadow of doubt…time will tell.

#Chinavirus

The Head of the FBI stated yesterday the FBI’s position has fir a while been a lab leak.

That could have been unintentional, but still from a lab developed from manipulation in animals.

The fact is that most scientists still believe overwhelmingly that the virus originated in an animal.

Surprises me to see some of you citing the FBI to support your opinions on the issue given your distrust and disdain for that agency. Any port, I guess.

Article from NPR about what the science says and the geographical evidence seems to be very strong that the virus came from the Wuhan market. Or there are some almost unbelievable coincidences in the way the virus spread from and near that area:

"Since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic began three years ago, its origin has been a topic of much scientific — and political — debate. Two main theories exist: The virus spilled over from an animal into people, most likely in a market in Wuhan, China, or the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and spread due to some type of laboratory accident.

The Wall Street Journal added to that debate this week when they reported that the U.S. Department of Energy has shifted its stance on the origin of COVID. It now concludes, with "low confidence," that the pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China.

The agency based their conclusion on classified evidence that isn't available to the public. According to the federal government, "low confidence" means "the information used in the analysis is scant, questionable, fragmented, or that solid analytical conclusions cannot be inferred from the information."

And at this point, the U.S. intelligence community still has no consensus about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Four of the eight intelligence agencies lean toward a natural origin for the virus, with "low confidence," while two of them – the DOE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – support a lab origin, with the latter having "moderate confidence" about their conclusion.

But at the end of the day, the origin of the pandemic is also a scientific question. Virologists, who study pandemic origins, are much less divided than the U.S. intelligence community. They say there is "very convincing" data and "overwhelming evidence" pointing to an animal origin.

In particular, scientists published two extensive, peer-reviewed papers in Science in July 2022, offering the strongest evidence to date that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in animals at a market in Wuhan, China. Specifically, they conclude that the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where a huge COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019.

Virologist Angela Rasmussen, who contributed to one of the Science papers, says the DOE's "low confident" conclusion doesn't "negate the affirmative evidence for zoonotic [or animal] origin nor do they add any new information in support of lab origin."

"Many other [news] outlets are presenting this as new conclusive proof that the lab origin hypothesis is equally as plausible as the zoonotic origin hypothesis," Rasmussen wrote in an email to NPR, "and that is a misrepresentation of the evidence for either."

So just what is the scientific evidence that the pandemic began at the seafood market?

Neither of the Science papers provide the smoking gun — that is, an animal infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus at a market.

But they come close. They provide photographic evidence of wild animals such as raccoon dogs and a red fox, which can be infected with and shed SARS-CoV-2, sitting in cages in the market in late 2019. What's more, the caged animals are shown in or near a stall where scientists found SARS-CoV-2 virus on a number of surfaces, including on cages, carts and machines that process animals after they are slaughtered at the market.

The data in the 2022 studies paints an incredibly detailed picture of the early days of the pandemic. Photographic and genetic data pinpoint a specific stall at the market where the coronavirus likely was transmitted from an animal into people. And a genetic analysis estimates the time, within weeks, when not just one but two spillovers occurred. It calculates that the coronavirus jumped into people once in late November or early December and then again few weeks later.

At this exact same time, a huge COVID outbreak occurred at the market. Hundreds of people, working and shopping at the market, were likely infected. That outbreak is the first documented one of the pandemic, and it then spilled over into the community, as one of the Science papers shows.

At the same time, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention found two variants of the coronavirus inside the market. And an independent study, led by virologists at the University of California, San Diego, suggests these two variants didn't evolve in people, because throughout the entire pandemic, scientists have never detected a variant linking the two together. Altogether, the new studies suggest that, most likely, the two variants evolved inside animals.

Evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey helped lead two of the studies and has been at the forefront of the search for the origins of the pandemic. He has spent his career tracking down the origins of pandemics, including the origin of HIV and the 1918 flu.

Back in May 2021, Worobey signed a letter calling for an investigation into the lab-leak theory. But then, through his own investigation, he quickly found data supporting an animal origin.

When the studies were first published online, NPR spoke to Worobey, who's at the University of Arizona, to understand what the data tells us about the origin of SARS-CoV-2; how, he believes, the data may shift the debate about the lab-leak theory; and the significance of photos taken five years before the pandemic. Here are key points from the conversation, which has been edited for clarity and length.

Live animals that are susceptible to COVID-19 were in the market in December 2019

It's clear-cut these wild, live animals, including raccoon dogs and red foxes, were in the market. We have photographic evidence from December 2019. A concerned customer evidently took these photos and videos of the market on Dec. 3 and posted them on Weibo [because it was illegal to sell certain live animals]. The photos were promptly scrubbed. But a CNN reporter had communicated directly with the person who took the photos. I was able to get in touch with this reporter, and they passed on those photos from the source. So we don't completely verify the photos.

An anonymous user on the Chinese social media platform Weibo posted pictures of live animals for sale in the southwest corner of the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, in 2019. Researchers investigating the origins of the SAR-CoV-2 virus are including these images in a forthcoming academic paper that pinpoints the southwest corner as the most probable origin point of the pandemic.
Worobey and Holmes et al.

Live susceptible animals were held in a stall where SARS-CoV-2 was later detected on a machine that processed animals in the market

We analyzed a leaked report from the Chinese CDC detailing the results of this environmental sampling. Virtually all of the findings in the report matched what was in the World Health Organization's report. But there was some extra information in the leaked report. For example, there was information not just on which stalls had virus in them — or had samples positive for SARS-CoV-2 — but also how many samples in a given stall yielded positive results.

We found out that one stall actually had five positive samples — five surfaces in that stall had virus on them. And even better, in that particular stall, the samples were very animal-y. For example, scientists found virus on a feather/hair remover, a cart of the sort that we see in photographs that are used for transporting cages and, best of all, a metal cage in a back room.

So now we know that when the national public health authorities shut down the market and then sampled the surfaces there, one of the surfaces positive for SARS-CoV-2 was a metal cage in a back room.

What's even weirder — it turns out that one of the co-authors of the study, Eddie Holmes, had been taken to the Huanan market several years before the pandemic and shown raccoon dogs in one of the stalls. He was told, "This is the kind of place that has the ingredients for cross-species transmission of dangerous pathogens."

So he clicks photos of the raccoon dogs. In one photo, the raccoon dogs are in a cage stacked on top of a cage with some birds in it.

And at the end of our sleuth work, we checked the GPS coordinates on his camera, and we find that he took the photo at the same stall, where five samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

So we connected all sorts of bizarre kinds of data. Together the data are telling a strong story.

Earliest known cases of COVID-19, even those not directly related to individuals who had been in the market, radiate out from the market
With a virus, such as SARS-CoV-2, that causes no symptoms or mild symptoms in most people, you don't have any chance of linking all the early cases to the site where the outbreak started. Because the virus is going to quickly spread to people outside of wherever it started.

And yet, from the clinical observations in Wuhan, around half of the earliest known COVID cases were people directly linked to the seafood market. And the other cases, which aren't linked through epidemiological data, have an even closer geographical association to the market. That's what we show in our paper.

It's absurd how strong the geographical association is [to the market].

NPR: Absurd? How? In the sense that the seafood market is so clearly bull's-eye center of this outbreak?

Yes. And I don't understand how anyone could not be moved, at least somewhat, by that data and then take this idea [of an animal origin] seriously, especially given the other things we've found in these studies.

The virus jumped into people right before the outbreak in the market

For example, our new genetic analysis tells us that this virus was not around for very long when the cases occurred at the market. For example, the earliest known patient at the market had an onset of symptoms on Dec. 10, 2019. And we can estimate that at that point in time, there were only about 10 people infected with the virus in the world and probably fewer than 70.

So if the pandemic didn't start at the market, one of the first five or 10 people infected in the world was at the market. And how do you explain that?

You have to remember: Wuhan is a city of 11 million people. And the Huanan market is only 1 of 4 places in Wuhan that sold live animals susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, such as raccoon dogs.

It's highly unlikely that the first COVID-19 outbreak would occur at the market if there weren't a source of the virus there
Step back and think, "Where is the first cluster of a new respiratory infection going to appear in this city?" It could appear at a market. But it could also appear at a school, a university or a meatpacking plant.

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NPR: Or a biotech conference?

Yes. In Washington state, SARS-CoV-2 first appeared in a man who had traveled back from China. In Germany, it was at an auto-parts supplier.

There are thousands, perhaps 10,000, other places at least as likely, or even more likely, to be the place where a new pathogen shows up. And yet, in Wuhan, the first cluster of cases happens to be one of the four places that sells live animals, out of 10,000 other places. If you're not surprised by that, then I don't think you're understanding the unlikelihood that that presents.

NPR: So what is the likelihood of that coincidence happening — that the first cluster of cases occurs at a market that sells animals known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, but the virus didn't actually come from the market?

I would put the odds at 1 in 10,000. But it's interesting. We do have one analysis where we show essentially that the chance of having this pattern of cases [clustered around the market] is 1 in 10 million [if the market isn't a source of the virus]. We consider that strong evidence in science.

The analyses that we've done are telling a very strong story.

The evidence is amongst the best we have for any emerging virus.

NPR: Really?

It's important to note we haven't found a related virus from the intermediate host. But we have a bunch of other evidence.

And the data zeroing in on the Huanan market, to me, is as compelling as the data that indicated to John Snow that the water pump was poisoning people who used it. [John Snow was a doctor in London who helped launch the field of outbreak investigations by figuring out the source of a cholera outbreak in the city in the mid-19th century].

Making these findings brought tears
Sometimes you have these rare moments where you're maybe the only person on Earth who has access to this kind of crucial information. As I just started to figure out that there were more cases around the market than you can expect randomly — I felt that way. And no exaggeration, that moment — those kinds of moments — bring a tear to your eye.

https://www.npr.org/sections/g...-sars-cov-2-pandemic