How did the coronavirus (COVID-19) start?
China's lack of transparency in managing information about SARS-COV-2 should raise doubts about the true origin of the virus.
Chinese authorities silenced Li Wenliang, a doctor who tried to raise an early alarm and later died after contracting the virus. Journalists who tried to blow the whistle disappeared. Beijing forced Chinese staff serving news outlets (like The Times) to resign.
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A Chinese virologist, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, has claimed that COVID-19 was human-made in a lab in China and released a report backing the claim.
Dr Yan posted a paper on the the open-access repository website, Zenote. The paper examines evidence showing that SARS-CoV-2 is likely a laboratory product created using bat coronaviruses ZC45 and/or ZXC21 as a template and/or backbone.
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A team of scientists in China have connected the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans to horseshoe bats in the Yunnan Province, China.
The genomic sequence of the virus, named SARS-CoV-2, was found to be 96% identical to that of a coronavirus the researchers had identified in horseshoe bats in Yunnan. The data point to a single introduction into humans, followed by sustained human-to-human transmission.
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Some scientists believe the novel coronavirus spread from bats to pangolins, before transmission to humans.
Independent teams of scientists have suggested that pangolins may have been an intermediate host for the novel coronavirus. These teams have reportedly uncovered SARS-CoV-2-like coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins that were seized in anti-smuggling operations in southern China.
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Research by leading Chinese scientist, Shi Zhengli, suggests the novel coronavirus may have been transmitted directly from bats to humans,.
Based on Shi's research, the assumption that the types of coronaviruses found in bats (which are very similar to COVID-19 in humans) could not directly bind to the receptors in humans (ACE2 receptors) necessary for cell infection, has been proven false.
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The South China University of Technology concluded that ‘the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan."
It points to research on bats and respiratory diseases carried by the animals at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC)—and the Wuhan Institute of Virology and WCDC being just 300 yards from the Huanan seafood market. But this report has since been deleted.
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Nature Journal, which published a report on the Chinese lab many claim is the source of the novel coronavirus, has rejected such claims.
The journal says, "Many stories have promoted an unverified theory that the Wuhan lab discussed in this article played a role in the coronavirus outbreak that began in December 2019. Nature knows of no evidence that this is true."
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Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, has rejected claims SARS-COV-2 is lab-engineered.
He told National Geographic magazine that the evidence is “very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated”. The US intelligence community has also ruled out any possibility the virus was man-made.
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The COVID-19 was first detected on December 2019, in Wuhan City (China). It initially existed in animals, before transmission to humans.
COVID-19 is a zoonotic virus, so can transfer from animals to humans and vice versa. Experts believe this strain of the virus originated in bats, then likely hung out in another species—where it lived and reproduced—before spreading to humans (likely at the Wuhan wet market).
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Studies by Scripps Research scientist, Kristian Andersen, concludes COVID-19 could not have been created in a lab.
According to Andersen, the so-called “cleavage” site that enables the virus’ entry into and infection of humans is a feature that diminishes in a lab-culture setting. He concludes, "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct..."
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China has imposed restrictions on the publication of academic research on the origins of the novel coronavirus.
This is according to a central government directive and online notices published by two Chinese universities, that have since been removed from the web. Studies on the origin of the virus will receive extra scrutiny and must be approved by central government officials.