Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Wrench

September 29, 2024 7:13 PM

Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic Crits-Christoph et al in Cell. Highlights: Common ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 linked to Huanan market matches the global common ancestor • Wildlife mitochondrial DNA identified in samples from stalls positive for SARS-CoV-2 • DNA from raccoon dogs, civets, and other wildlife species detected in market samples • Genotypes of potential hosts were reconstructed for retracing animal geographic origins

Article via This Week In Virology's Clinical Update, with discussion beginning at around 18:30. Show notes for the episode contain extensive links to earlier cited papers.

posted by bq (15 comments total)

It is important to push back hard against conspiracy theories, because they make it harder for countries to coordinate and collaborate in response to future pandemics.

Another theory is that some but not all Covid antibodies were found in tissue samples taken in Italy before September 2019. Thresholding and the some-but-not-all criteria for antibody detection have lead other researchers to lend this theory less or no weight. I'm not a virologist or immunologist but these are all serious and credible people doing the work on both sides of said theory.

Still, that kind of evidence does fit a pattern where some historically devastating viral diseases have circulated at a low level before exploding in case numbers in other parts of the world. Could Chinese tourists visiting Italy have brought a more highly infectious form of the virus back with them to their home country?

Whatever the ultimate cause, tourism and encroaching on undeveloped lands to hunt down new sources of protein highlights how migration, consumption, and other modern-day practices have been raising the risks of new zoonotic diseases, some of them having global impact. This has nothing to do with conspiracy theories, but it doesn't get discussed so much — perhaps because looking at the consequences of our behaviors is bad for business.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:37 PM on September 29 [10 favorites]

Not all antibodies are monoclonal (reactive against one target). Some (many? most?) are polyclonal. So I would not be surprised to see AB from old samples reacting to a new thing.
posted by Slackermagee at 7:58 PM on September 29 [1 favorite]

The fact that we could've contained and stopped SARS-CoV-2 like we did SARS-CoV-1 still makes me angry to this day. In a world where we could identify the source down to the marketplace, maybe even the stall it originated from, we still utterly failed our fellow humans when it came to doing what needed to be done.
posted by lock robster at 9:24 PM on September 29 [14 favorites]

Mod note: One (and a couple of responses) deleted. Don't attack other members. Comment on the issues or facts and explain your viewpoint, if different, rather than derailing into a big fight.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:03 AM on September 30 [2 favorites]

Remove one letter from the headline and it becomes a period romance novel.

I learned this at the same time I learned I need to update my glasses prescription.
posted by Brachinus at 5:43 AM on September 30 [4 favorites]

Strictly speaking it’s not proposing any conspiracy, is it? It’s just an unorthodox theory, although one a particular state actor may have an interest in promoting. There were a number of papers claiming early circulation in 2020-2021. Interest seems to have faded since then, though I can find some from 2022.
posted by atoxyl at 9:05 AM on September 30 [2 favorites]

> The fact that we could've contained and stopped SARS-CoV-2 like we did SARS-CoV-1 still makes me angry to this day. In a world where we could identify the source down to the marketplace, maybe even the stall it originated from, we still utterly failed our fellow humans when it came to doing what needed to be done.

I don’t think that’s true. There are specific difference between them that made COVID much more difficult to contain. 1 was most contagious when patients were ill, so isolating people with symptoms was effective. 2, on the other hand, is characterized by spread before symptoms manifest or before they are severe. The incubation length was up to twice as long. And for most people, Covid was less severe - sadly this makes it less containable as well, as it was more difficult to identify people who were sick.
posted by bq at 9:40 AM on September 30 [9 favorites]

So it's misinformation? Or disinformation?

It’s not that strong a theory but it’s also not that serious. This is not a topic on which there has been a completely clear consensus history to date, that’s why the OP research is interesting in the first place.
posted by atoxyl at 4:18 PM on September 30 [1 favorite]

You are, in fact, being oddly belligerent towards another user over something that calls for mild debunking/explanation of why the hypothesis has fallen out of favor at worst.
posted by atoxyl at 4:30 PM on September 30 [1 favorite]

Anyone curious about the theory that Cov19 was active in Italy before September 2019 would get a lot from the Wired piece that atoxyl linked to an archive of above. A Flawed, Strange Covid-19 Origin Theory Is Gaining Traction

While it does point out that a lot of actual scientists were pushing variations on it, it points out likely explanations for why they are (not) supported by false positives. It also has a great simile.

“It’s like finding an iPhone in a pharaoh’s tomb,” says Worobey—you either have to rewrite history, or you have to consider the possibility that one of the archaeologists dropped their phone.

posted by GeckoDundee at 4:54 PM on September 30 [6 favorites]

It's a possible explanation but a pretty poor comparison if there ever was one, considering it's the difference between 2000 years vs two or three months and an obviously manmade technological marvel vs something in all likelihood is an natural occurrence. The history isn't fully known, that's the whole point.

I'm not sure I like the trend where people just yell "TRUST THE SCIENTISTS" instead of presenting an actual counterargument, it's a bit too much like citing the Pope for my liking. Scientists disagree all the time and consensus changes as new information comes to light, especially when things are new and rapidly evolving - that's the whole point of science as a practice. It takes time and expertise that not everybody has to really delve into this stuff, but it's not helpful to declare something off-limits until the priesthood can agree on an interpretation.
posted by ndr at 2:27 AM on October 1

Uh yeah but there's one Pope and there's thousands upon thousands of scientists and I believe they mostly agree covid likely came from a wild source in a market?
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:28 AM on October 1

There’s a difference between “it was Old Man Fauci the entire time” COVID conspiracy narratives and slightly out-there hypotheses from the literature. It should not, in most cases, be too hard to tell one from the other, and there’s no need to be confrontational about the latter. There’s some reason to be wary of who is pushing the idea that the virus was already circulating outside China in 2019, I suppose, because the government of China might have some interest in seeing it catch on, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is pushing it very hard at this point. It’s just a curiosity.
posted by atoxyl at 3:11 PM on October 1

For what it's worth, I believe evidence that Wuhan markets are the likely source, and what I said up-thread about a history of reservoirs of viruses lying dormant until outbreaks occur in entirely different locations is still not controversial, even if what has been investigated in Italy about Covid-19 specifically may have unresolved complications, which I mentioned in my original comment.

In past Covid threads I have stated that I do not believe lab leak conspiracy theories, so I have a history here of speaking up against that line of discussion.

In one example of such a previous thread, even, I reported on a new variant of Covid (Delta) that would in the coming months prove resistant to then-available vaccines.

One user a couple comments up in this thread stringently denied such a thing could even exist until I provided citations of research from multiple institutions to that fact.

When I did take the time to provide legitimate citations I received no acknowledgement from that user, and I still have not gotten that acknowledgement to this day. So, for what it is worth, I have since been reluctant to follow up on bullying demands for cites from anyone here. People can take that for what they please.

I still think there is a larger issue of modern human behavior that puts us at risk of these zoonotic viruses: how we encroach on undeveloped land, how we expand our sources of protein, how we travel farther and more frequently than previous generations, how we are changing our climate and how that helps vectors carry diseases further. These and other choices we make expose us to new pathogens and have helped the spread of the most virulent and dangerous of them.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:02 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]

Delta didn’t turn out to be that resistant to vaccines, did it? Omicron is where it really broke out.

(not picking a fight here, just chatting)
posted by atoxyl at 11:09 PM on October 2