Origin of COVID-19

I'm looking forward to reading this, especially since I am now officially part of the University of Arizona!!  

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abm4454?adobe_mc=MCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1637302707

To remind everyone, on January 8, 2020 I posted this to AFT:

Posted: January 08 2020 at 6:09pm

Starting to look like a corona-virus, just like SARS and MERS. I thought

that was the most likely candidate.

The seafood market at the center of the investigation also sold live

animals such as poultry, bats, marmots, and snakes. In the SARS

outbreak, bats harbored the virus, which passed it to palm civets as the

intermediate host, which then transmitted the virus to people in the livemarket

setting.

Ye Gods, is there anything those people WON'T eat? No wonder they

have so many exotic virus outbreaks!

Why do you think people are more inclined to believe that covid was man made?

Is it because they can't get their heads around the whole virus/mutation/ variants,how viruses evolve by swapping RNA with other viruses,

I mean it happens everytime a child is conceived !!!!

except it's DNA......

maybe therein  lies the problem...🤔!!!!!

take care all 😷😉💉

If you REALLY want to explore the topic, check out this paper! 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC544107/pdf/1371-04.pdf

carbon20 wrote: All that have been on this site for a long time , Realised that a pandemic was imminent ,and they understood the science behind it, This crossover between spices is not a new phenomenon ,it's happened before and im sure it will happen again, It's inevitable........... Take care all 😷😉💉

True....however, attention on this site for many years (as I've read it) was focused upon influenza, and specifically avian influenza.  

I've taken many hours of pandemic training & preparedness work, and except for the bioterrorism stuff after 9/11 (which is waning in interest), all of the emphasis was upon influenza and emerging avian strains.  Not much attention was given to swine flu or human variants.  

After the SARS near-pandemic of 2003, I was screaming loud and long about the need for public health to shift attention and focus upon coronavirus agents vs. influenza.  Reasons included:

1. Knowledge - our PH scientists know & understand virtually all aspects of influenza, including reservoirs (wildfowl), mechanisms of transmission (primarily respiratory) and treatment (established antivirals such as Relenza and Tamiflu and well-understood vaccine science).   On the other hand, coronaviruses have been largely ignored by public health since they tend not to cause severe illness, have no anti-virals/vaccines (until just recently), and haven't been perceived as a big threat. 
2. Perception - For the 30+ years I've been in PH, practitioners have been obsessed with the 1918 "Spanish" flu pandemic.  Everyone in PH keeps waiting for the next big flu pandemic, to the point that they took their eyes off of the ball and allowed a SARS-CoV2 pandemic to erupt in its pace.  
3. Politics - PH is highly political, and it is hard to change the direction/trajectory of such a large, international organization.  We have many "silos" and for some reason, all of the PH scientists I know (top notch by the way) were all obsessed with H5N1....after spending years studying the literature, I don't think H5N1 is the likely strain for a pandemic (it doesn't ike to attach to human lung cells). 

Therefore, we are hidebound by our scientific and institutional biases.  There are MANY worse viruses that could leap from wildlife into humans, including Marburg Virus, NIPAH and others.   COVID-19 was bad enough, if we didn't have our advanced vaccine machinery ready to make vaccines, we'd be in even worse trouble.

Be safe, Chuck

CRS, DrPH maybe to put your points in other words; The carpenter did know nails...so that is why he worked with nails...

Flu (H5N1 a.o) has been seen as "the major risk"...Peak Prosperity/Chris Martenson once had a very good interview with I believe a virologist...She studied coronavirusses before SARS-1...But coronavirusses were hardly seen as interesting..she had to push for the subject to get it accepted for study...

I believe what was it 90% of lifeforms on this globe are insects and smaller ? Virusses are not even seen as "life"since they need to reproduce in a host...

If you would have to make a list of the known virusses you may learn there are allready millions-often with subtypes...Unknown virusses may be even more...(if you do not know what you are looking for you may not recognize it...). 

Underestimating the risks may be the biggest problem...SARS-2 was a relatively mild virus...acting in time could have prevented this pandemic. 

From Peak Prosperity (when it was worth watching) "It did not have to be this way"....and that may be the hardest part to accept...WE  (humans) were the weakspot due to inaction...