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We May Never Locate Covid’s Point of Origin – But There Are More Important Answers to Find

by Ian Macleod
22 April 2023 1:00 PM

Dr. Alice C. Hughes is one of many scientists whose research on bats has been stifled by the Chinese Government. The Associate Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Hong Kong, recalls how research into the origins of Covid was encouraged at first. But that changed abruptly early in 2021. She analyses major flaws in a recent study published by Nature to elaborate on this state intervention in academia.

Hughes argues that if we want to be better prepared for the next pandemic, it is time to stop focusing on finding ‘animal zero’, and direct efforts towards understanding the process of viruses spilling over into human populations.

She has written about this in the Spectator.

As Covid spread through China, scientific institutes were initially encouraged or requested to develop task forces to chase down the origins of Covid. Even researchers who had never worked on bats – which at the time were believed to be the most likely origin of the virus – were suddenly going into the field to find a wild source. At the same time these institutes were placed under intense scrutiny. Any publication had to be vetted and approved prior to submission if it mentioned the possible origins of SARS-CoV-2, and scientists were virtually forbidden to talk to journalists, even about their published work. 

Then the political climate began to shift once again, and the Chinese Government began to make research into Covid’s origins more difficult. By early 2021 the ability to conduct field research on bats became more and more challenging, and within provinces such as Yunnan, where the most similar viruses to SARS-CoV-2 had been found in bats, scientists were told that bat research was no longer permissible by the middle of the year. This included me and my research team. Whilst we had conducted our bat work unhindered in Yunnan since 2013, and like so many scientists were encouraged to take more samples in 2020, by 2021 we were the subject of intense scrutiny, sometimes involving police checks, interviews and monitoring even before our sampling became impossible. …

In early 2022 China finally acknowledged that it had taken swabs from the Huanan wet market, when it published a preprint (a study which has not been peer-reviewed) by George Gao of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, along with several other academics. The underlying data it was based on was not publicly released. 

This preprint is the basis of a peer-reviewed study in Nature which was published this month by China’s CDC, on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. How this paper came to be published in Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals, when it contains so many apparent errors and obfuscations though, is not clear. 

The Nature publication is based on swabs from the Huanan wet market, the cages, and other samples taken directly from animals. Unlike the cage swabs, it’s impossible to know where these animal samples came from and how they relate to the market. Several stray animals around the wet market were tested at the end of March, after the virus had already peaked and waned in Wuhan. The value of the animal data, three months after the market was closed, is very limited. …

Perhaps rather than continuing to try and find ‘animal zero’, it is finally time to refocus our efforts on understanding why viruses like Covid spill over into human populations, to better understand what conditions may increase this risk. Because Covid will not be the last pandemic we witness, and we are yet to learn the lessons needed to prevent making the same mistakes again. 

Worth reading in full.

Tags: ChinaCOVID-19LockdownsSARS-CoV-2

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18 Comments
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GlassHalfFull
GlassHalfFull
1 year ago

Total nonsense.
The countries ignoring the “rules” are the US and it’s vassals who make up their own rules when it suits them.
Russia used UN Charter Article 51 and R2P to stop the ethnic Russians from persecution in Ukraine.
The US is Israel’s best friend who ignore all UN Resolutions and both vote against any UN peace deals along with their puppets in the UK and EU.
Russia and China are more likely to follow agreed rules than the West.

85
-8
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
1 year ago
Reply to  GlassHalfFull

I agree.
Uncle Sam’s hegemony is collapsing. It would be amusing to see how that pans out but I fear that its death throes may do for us all.
Out of chaos is their only chance of survival.

47
-2
Monro
Monro
1 year ago

The last great example of the ‘rules based order’ was the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.

The subsequent flouting of that order by Clinton and Blair in the Balkans, the nonsense that was Rambouillet, set the scene for much of what has followed.

Clinton and Blair, the worst pair of Western leaders in living memory……and then it got worse……

Last edited 1 year ago by Monro
68
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RW
RW
1 year ago

This rules-based international order (to this date, one of these rules is that Britain, France, the USA and Russia may chose to invade Germany whenenver they really dislike German domestic politics) is nothing but the league of nations concept reheated, ie, an attempt of the so-called victorious powers of the second world war to lend perpetuity to their reordering of the world by nothing but force by ‘prohibiting’ others from changing it again by use of force. Pretty much everyone except the German pseudo-states aka reservations for ethnic Germans in central europe has ignored all of this since ever.

Eg, probably the first violation of these rules occurred when Poland annexed Stettin after the second world war. That was westward of the supposed border of Poland but (obviously) Germany didn’t have an army which could have prevented this anymore and (as obviously) the proponents of this rule-based international order didn’t care provided the right perpetrator chose an acceptable victim.

11
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Roy Everett
Roy Everett
1 year ago

Could Dr McGrogan’s opinion be summarised as “The Long March Through The Institutions has begun to eat its own tail”?. Or perhaps, rather than becoming circular, it has blundered into a swamp??

27
0
stewart
stewart
1 year ago

You know what killed the rules based order?

The US-UK invasion of Iraq.

Everything has been unravelling since then.

37
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Roy Everett
Roy Everett
1 year ago
Reply to  stewart

…and by the time of Lockdown, the general public had long forgotten about the order just went along with whatever wheeze was dreamt up by SAGE or even over breakfast at Downing Street. There’s nothing so effective as a declaration of war in persuading the population to forget the rules, whether the threat is real or invented.

Last edited 1 year ago by Roy Everett
33
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True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
1 year ago
Reply to  stewart

So true. It was the single biggest blunder since Vietnam, if not worse.

13
0
Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
1 year ago

Another example of the golden rule, those that don’t follow the rules are getting the gold in ever-increasing amounts.

13
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

There was a sense not that long ago that the western countries were far from perfect but nonetheless were responsible for vast improvements. It is still there even in colonised countries the sense they moved to a better place despite their subjugation. Railways for example. People in poorer countris value their railways far more than we do. And of course there is plenty to value. The speed, romance, chance meetings, just the idea of railway stations. They still admire the West as it was a few years ago they are just aghast at what it has turned into and you can hardly blame them.

18
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

Don’t destroy yourselves. Accept that by hook or crook you have been taken over and try to find something left to unite with. I know in contemporary Britain it might seem impossible but the chance is still there I think and I wouldn’t wait much longer.

13
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

I look back to not that long ago, say the early 1990s and the total takeover of the psyche that has occurred then amongst the British. I don’t know if there is a way back. The people that I get on with best these days are people living in caravans and attempting to disengage. I hope that we rediscover that these people are the best of us. I don’t give two hoots about death or money and I never will. I think that there is enough energy left in this country to re-awaken this spirit. You own nothing and your salary was just a comforting illusion. Can you imagine Iran or Putin trying to take over Cornwall? It will never happen these people are beyond reach. Same goes gor Geordieland.

9
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
1 year ago

The biggest irony of R2P is that Putin’s Russia has invoked it to speciously justify their invasion of Georgia and Ukraine (x2) as well. It’s all a load of hooey, or should I say, khuy.

Last edited 1 year ago by True Spirit of America Party
3
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True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
1 year ago

The old Westphalian order is looking more and more like it will win out by default.

3
-3
marebobowl
marebobowl
1 year ago

Why would anyone make reference to the FT when we know MSM has been telling porkies for over three years now. The last place we should be looking for reliable Information is the MSM. There are hundreds of other sources. Use them.

8
0
porgycorgy
porgycorgy
1 year ago

I may be guilty of not reading this article carefully enough, but I’m not really sure what the precise direction of this article is. True, Putin and Xi have rejected a highly corrupted Western ‘Rules based order’ – and rightly so. Why call Putin, Trump and Xi ‘rogue actors’ therefore, for seeking Realpolitik and practical solutions in a newly multipolar world?!! Whilst Erdogan is clearly not to be trusted (true), Putin is just about the most measured, calm and outwardly ‘moral’ leader around, and the whole of Russian foreign policy these days is very carefully measured and reasoned. Including participation in the United Nations. It is in many cases the West that has flouted UN resolutions. Trump, for his part, had a good record of avoiding war – I’m no expert about that… ask a Russian – they know it all, chapter and verse, just how many countries the USA has attacked. That we have effectively all but proscribed the Russian point of view in the West just about says it all.

20
0

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