Miners in a mine containing Bats that carry the virus are coming in direct contact with the feces, dander and even urine. Bats emit urine in the form of a mist there may be viral particles contained in their bodily fluids so that would be a mode of transmission for any human in the mine or cave. But what about the humans not coming in direct contact with the Bats like the Miners. If the miners were contagious after being exposed why wasn't there a Pandemic back in 2012? Or was the virus not transmissible from person to person but only through direct contact with the Bats. That's where the Wuhan Virology Lab would come into play and the Research on "Gain Of Function". Which through techniques performed in the Lab rendered a ordinary Zoonotic virus to be transmissible from person to person. That's a good possibility and that's what's being looked into from the information from Fauci's emails.
Originally Posted by Levianon17
There's a physicist and M.D., neither of whom is an expert in virology, who were on Hannity tonight and published an editorial in the WSJ today. Apparently they've been making the rounds since last fall. They are making your argument, that zoonotic viruses cannot be readily transmissible between humans unless they're modified in the laboratory. One of these guys, the doctor, says the chances this was NOT modified in a lab is one in a billion. That blows his credibility, because no one who's an expert in the field is making claims anything like that.
Aren't there a number of viruses that started out in animals, went to humans, and then we ended up with epidemics or near misses because of human-to-human transmission? Like bird and swine influenzas, ebola, HIV, smallpox, zika, and the coronaviruses that cause the common cold, SARS and MERS?
I read that you have small outbreaks of coronaviruses and other viruses from bats and other animals that can stay localized in rural areas until they finally hit larger cities, years later. The writer said that's what happened with Ebola.
With respect to the miners, one scientist said that the rate of "reproduction" or mutation of coronaviruses is so fast that you can have significant changes in the structure of the virus in a single infected individual. You're compressing years of evolution in many living organisms into days in a virus. And remember that one of the viruses from the mine was already 98.7% similar genetically.
Yes, samples of coronaviruses from the mine were obtained by the Wuhan institute. Did they perform gain of function research that made the virus more contagious? Hell if I know. From what I've read apparently there are no tell tale signs that the COVID 19 virus was genetically engineered. I've read elsewhere if they were injecting the virus into humanized mice, or accidentally or purposefully creating a recombinant virus where the genetic materially from the bat virus is mixed with genomes from another virus, there might not be a smoking gun.
My opinion is that this may or may not have accidentally come from the Wuhan lab. A person could make a reasonable argument that it probably did. But gain of function research was probably not what made this virus the scourge of humanity. But my thoughts and $3.00 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
The problem with assuming this must have been the result of gain of function research is that if wasn't, then we're not learning anything from from the experience. We wouldn't do anything about preventing the spread of coronaviruses from bats to humans. We wouldn't work towards shutting down wet markets. That would be a pity. In recent decades three new life threatening diseases, SARS, MERS and COVID 19, were caused by bat coronaviruses.