Chances of finding Covid-virus ancestor ‘almost nil’, say virologists

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03611-w

by baja_blast • 4 years ago

26 9 4 years ago

baja_blast3• 4 years ago

What I find interesting is for both SARS1 and MERS they were able to find an intermediate animal responsible for the spillover within months. Another key difference with SARS2 and SARS1/MERS is that when spillovers from an intermediate animal such as ferrets/camels happen it always spills over in many locations over time since the virus is circulating within the intermediate animal population. So you'll find unrelated outbreaks in different geographic locations each with slightly different mutations present.

But with SARS2 there seems to only have been on single outbreak, and we have not been able to find the intermediate species where the spillover occurred. On top of that both SARS1/MERS the outbreaks displayed traceable mutations that occurred as it adapted to humans, initially being poorly suited for humans. SARS2 on the other hand was perfectly adapted for humans.

Jemm• 4 years ago

Sure does make a compelling argument to consider a lab leak as the source.

baja_blast3• 4 years ago

it does, but investigating the lab origin could have negative implications of a large swath of Virology. So it's better for virologists to ignore the issue all together.

tomek_ycomb2• 4 years ago

Please cite ability to find sars and mers animals "within months." Iirc it was years

baja_blast3• 4 years ago

For SARS1 they detected the virus from in Himalayan palm civets at a market in Guangdong. "All the animal isolates retain a 29-nucleotide sequence that is not found in most human isolates." - which means the virus was not from human to civet as opposed to human -> civet

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1087139

For MERS(outbreak 2012) they linked the intermediate species to be camels https://www.science.org/content/article/new-middle-eastern-v...

One thing you'll notice when reading the studies of these two viruses they both had multiple spill overs since the virus was circulating in an intermediate species.

When you hear "It took years to find the source", what they are talking about is the original bat source that the virus originated before it infected the intermediate hosts. These statements are disinformation since when people are talking about "finding the intermediate host" they are speaking of the animal the that triggered the spillover to humans which is much easier to trace and can be found quite quickly.

kelseyfrog• 4 years ago

Help me understand the relative probabilities then. What are the probabilities of other novel virii in SARS and adjacent families?

Chances of finding Covid-virus ancestor ‘almost nil’, say virologists

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