Spot the pattern

[cromwell]

1957 - Asian flu.Started in China, killed between1-4 million worldwide.
1968 - Hong Kong flu. Started in China, killed between 1-4 million worldwide.
1996 - Influenza A/H5N1 first isolated from a goose in China 1996.
2002-2004 - SARS. Origin China. Less than 1,00o died worldwide.
2016 - A 5th epidemic of the H7N9 virus began in October 2016 in China.
2019 - Corona virus, origin China.

This is the question that no politician wants asking.
Why are all these diseases starting in China, again and again? And what are you doing about it?

Because the economic system of globalism has relocated much of manufacturing to the third world, much of it to China which seems to specialize in foul diseases.

[Workingman]

One of the most popular (conspiracy) theories doing the rounds is that the Chinese eat wild animals.

Well humans have been eating "wild" animals for hundreds of thousands of years, and still do. We have actually only domesticated and farmed very few species.

Another is that China has many "wet" markets where multiple species mix and are slaughtered all in the same place. However, that is the case in many countries in S.E Asia, the sub-continent, Africa, the M.E. and S. America.

It has to be something else, but what?

One possibility is that these places have human populations living in close proximity to insects and animals carrying viruses etc. that are not fatal to them - think malaria and mosquitoes. With viruses there could easily be a "species jump" and / or mutation through bites or contact with dead infected animals and poor hygiene.

[Kaz]

Humans may well have been eating wild animals for ever, but the Chinese will literally eat any animal, and any part thereof

[Workingman]

Yes, that's true, but so do "bushmen", nomads and hunters around the globe. There has to be more to it than eating wild meat, that's too easy an answer.

[medsec222]

Not into conspiratory theories but did something escape from a nearby lab?

[Workingman]

Not into conspiratory theories but did something escape from a nearby lab?

It is a claim debunked many times as this article says.

There is something about tropical and sub-tropical regions with human populations and lots of biodiversity when it comes to infectious diseases. This has been going on since we climbed down from the trees, so it is nothing new. Africa and Asia are historically the main incubators.

Bats of many species are know to carry hundreds of viruses to which they are immune. They can infect other animals which can become susceptible to one or more of the viruses and become carriers, and so it goes down the line till humans get it. SARS was brought to us by civets and MERS came by camel.

[Suff]

That article certainly discusses why it is an unlikely escape from a lab. But it does not categorically rule it out.

It also makes a statement about the genetic sequencing of the virus being released "incredibly quickly". In fact faster than the most pre-eminent labs In the world who had the same source material. By quite some margin.

Then there is the point that the BAT coronavirus is 4 amino acids different from the human "jump" version. Something which has never been recorded before.

The theory may not be correct, but there are some significant questions to be answerd.

[saundra]

Not into conspiratory theories but did something escape from a nearby lab?

Yes that's my theory to time will tell

[Workingman]

The 96% figure is puzzling the scientists. They know it can jump and jump again, but from what, to what, and then to humans. The closest they have come is in smuggled pangolins from southeast Asia and Africa with a 99% fit, but they were not in the Wuhan market. They also know that some novel viruses can jump directly to humans from water fowl such as ducks, geese, gulls etc. and that opens up another line of enquiry. So the search and research goes on.

Rather than knocking the early release of the genetic sequencing scientists working on the problem welcomed it:

Chinese researchers “released the genomic sequence incredibly rapidly online. . . . They were very public in sharing the most important first piece of information” about it, McCray tells The Scientist. “The fact that scientists all over the world had access to that genomic sequence” made a lot of early research possible, he says.

It might, possibly, have accidentally escaped from the lab, though it's doubtful, as the article states. However, the jump from that to it being a bioweapon gone wrong is what the conspiracy nutters are doing.

[Suff]

Yes it is missing a lot of potency for a bio weapon. Like pneumonic transmission.

Whatever happened it is a puzzle.