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I write a lot about Covid origins.
I thought the lab leak theory made sense, back in 2020, but I eventually came to realize that it's very unlikely to be true.
Here's a summary of some long posts I've written and many shorter threads:
Interesting report on the H5N1 virus found in Utah Mink, which asks questions like:
• Did they catch it from cows or birds?
• When did the outbreak start?
• What other mutations occurred?
virological.org/t/preliminar…
Note: i phrased that wrong — either of those amino acid changes could happen on their own, but G228S is unlikely because the change is from GGA to AGT/AGC, so 2 nucleotide change.
Pigs also express a mix of both types of receptors, and are another potentially dangerous intermediate for that reason.
Bat sampling trip finds more relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in Thailand:
Peer-reviewed paper published this week reports a group of new SARS-related bat CoVs in Thailand, & demonstrates proof-of-concept you can get actionable public health data from wildlife sampling. 1/🧵
nature.com/articles/s42003-0…
Nature tries a large number of combinations across huge numbers of bats, and some of them happen to infect other animals.
xitter.cf/PeterDaszak/status/211…
With @CREID_Network funding formerly to EcoHealth Alliance & in collaboration w/ @ChulalongkornU @dukenus @ThaiRedCross & others, we sampled bats & people at Ratchaburi Cave 1 hr West of Bangkok where ~3million bats fly out every night & locals gather to watch the spectacle 4/
Those bat viruses are always going to be present in nature, but the choices we make in how we farm and eat other animals will have a big impact in terms of whether we get another spillover of these viruses:
xitter.cf/tgof137/status/2094906…
China cracked down on their exotic wildlife farms after Covid. The farms just moved elsewhere in Southeast Asia:
yahoo.com/news/science/artic…
