Scientists rebuff Coronavirus conspiracy theories; Their analysis suggests that the virus evolved in a manner that would have been difficult to reproduce in a lab

Inkstone News ^ | 02/22/2020 | Simone McCarthy

[SeekAndFind]

A team of researchers has hit back at rumors that the coronavirus that emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year was engineered.

In a paper posted on Monday on the scientific online forum Virological, the scientists – who include top epidemiologist W. Ian Lipkin from Columbia University; Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney; and Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research – said crucial genetic clues indicate that the coronavirus was not created in a laboratory.

Despite scientists’ repeated efforts at debunking conspiracy theories, rumors about the still-unknown origins of the virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, have been rife.

Most are based on the idea that the virus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers have built one of the world’s biggest databases of bat-related viruses. The institute was the first to identify the new coronavirus as directly related to a wild strain found in bats.

The speculation prompted the institute’s lead researcher, Shi Zhengli, to say in a post on the social media platform WeChat: “I swear with my life, [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab.”

But that has not stopped the rumors, including in the United States, where Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, suggested in a Fox News television broadcast on Sunday that the virus could have come from a “biosafety level-4 super laboratory” in China.

The senator later clarified on Twitter he did not say the new coronavirus was an “engineered bioweapon,” but that there were several hypotheses about its origins that needed to be further explored.

[Cold Heart]

Good article in that at the end it explains what pre-print of scientific articles are and their purpose of peer review.

Also makes them available for FR review:)

[familyop]

That’s a good point.

[Jamestown1630]

And they get Awards for it!

[Abathar]

"“Workers in protective gear carry a bag containing a giant salamander that was reported to have escaped from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province in January”"

We knew it couldn't be you, it specifically said giant, and those of us here know you're anything but that.

[Salamander]

Another Monday, another short joke!

:D