This research, carried out in labs that did not have maximum level of biosafety, was increasing the infectivity of laboratory-created diseases by constructing chimeric coronaviruses - despite strong denial of such practices by the key Chinese scientists. '.we do know one thing now beyond debate: speculative “gain-of-function” experiments on mutant bat viruses were taking place in Wuhan laboratories. Peter Daszak and Shi Zhengli both claimed there was no gain of function research at Wuhan but we know that is not true. It's not like China can't manufacture fabrics. Getting through 50+ million animals a year just for pelts is obscenely risky. I think it's pretty clear that the pandemic arose due to the appalling biosecurity standards in China's farming and trade of live animals, that the Chinese authorities know this, and are trying to avoid international pressure and loss of face by hiding evidence and spreading FUD. “All of that is probably trying to tell us something.” “The fact that early cases were linked to the market, and that the market was selling what were very likely intermediate hosts?” he says. Worobey says the paper played a key role in tilting his thinking away from the lab-origin hypothesis. “I’m really disappointed that came out after ,” says WHO’s Maria Van Kerkhove, who acknowledges contributing to the oversight herself because she mistakenly ignored a draft of the paper that the authors sent her when they first submitted it in October 2020. It’s unclear why the international members of the WHO joint mission were not told about the live market mammals by their Chinese counterparts. (Zhou did not respond to emails from Science.) “None of the 17 shops posted an origin certificate or quarantine certificate, so all wildlife trade was fundamentally illegal,” Zhou and his colleagues wrote in their paper. Minks-a species farmed for fur that has acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections from humans in many countries- were also abundant. Live animals can more easily transmit a respiratory virus than meat from a butchered one, and the animals included masked palm civets, the main species that transmitted SARS-CoV to humans, and raccoon dogs, which also naturally harbored that virus and have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in lab experiments. (The researchers had surveyed the markets as part of a study of a tick-borne disease afflicting animals.) It found nearly 50,000 animals from 38 species, most alive, for sale at 17 shops at Huanan and three other Wuhan markets between May 2017 and November 2019. A surprising study published in June by Zhou Zhao-Min of China West Normal University and colleagues challenged that view. The report also contained a major error: It claimed there were “no verified reports of live mammals being sold around 2019” at Huanan and other markets linked to early cases. That shows the market was bursting with virus, Wang says: “In my career, I have never been able to isolate a coronavirus from an environmental sample.” The report describes how scientists took many samples from floors, walls, and other surfaces at Wuhan markets and were able to culture two viruses isolated from Huanan. One specific finding bolsters that case, Wang says. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.Īs scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general (5), the United States and 13 other countries (6), and the European Union (7) that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. More investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic.
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