WHO chief inspector says 'likely' patient zero was Wuhan lab researcher(taiwannews.com.tw)
taiwannews.com.tw
WHO chief inspector says 'likely' patient zero was Wuhan lab researcher
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4269374
4 comments
> What is likely is that the virus jumped from bats to humans 'in the field', i.e. in nature. This is what happened with SARS and MERS to the best of our knowledge.
Both SARS and MERS had an intermediate host before it jumped to humans. Many other species are vulnerable to COVID, so it is not at all necessary that it was directly transmitted from bats to humans
Insinuating that this was caused by the group that was studying bats at the Wuhan institute is not really good science because there are so many equally likely hypotheses.
This does not really help finding the real origins of COVID. The most likely outcome of the current pressure on China is that this country will try to destroy all results they have on bat viruses.
Both SARS and MERS had an intermediate host before it jumped to humans. Many other species are vulnerable to COVID, so it is not at all necessary that it was directly transmitted from bats to humans
Insinuating that this was caused by the group that was studying bats at the Wuhan institute is not really good science because there are so many equally likely hypotheses.
This does not really help finding the real origins of COVID. The most likely outcome of the current pressure on China is that this country will try to destroy all results they have on bat viruses.
"An employee who was infected in the field by taking samples falls under one of the probable hypotheses. This is where the virus jumps directly from a bat to a human. In that case, it would then be a laboratory worker instead of a random villager or other person who has regular contact with bats. So it is actually in the likely category."
What is likely is that the virus jumped from bats to humans 'in the field', i.e. in nature. This is what happened with SARS and MERS to the best of our knowledge.
Considering that China has made a lot of efforts since SARS to trace SARS itself and other potential virii from bats in the wild, this is indeed a possibility that the human who caught the virus first from a bat might have been a researcher. But the 'likely category' is the set of all people who had contacts with bats in the wild and I don't interpret his comment as suggesting that a researcher is more likely than a villager or someone else.