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Then what is the probable possible sources?

If someone separate them by media says, twitter says, science says, conspiracy says? It will be great.




These viruses have a reservoir in bats and they jump to humans through an intermediary animal. In the case of the virus that caused SARS[1], which was another coronavirus within the same family as the current virus of interest, there is some evidence that it went bats -> palm civets -> humans. Palm civets are/were sold at wet markets in China. It's not definitive that the palm civet was the source, however, as they subsequently found the virus in other animals.

For the current virus[2], the time and place of transfer is unknown, but the current thinking seems to be that it followed the same chain as SARS (bats -> some animal -> humans).

There is absolutely zero evidence from credible scientists of any kind of "escaped from the lab" or "bioweapon" source. These are just conspiracy theories.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...


It doesn't have to be a bioweapon but there's no evidence to confirm or deny that this escaped from the Wuhan Virology Institute. It could have very easily infected a worker from the lab if safety precautions were not followed. And the CCP would never disclose it.


Without jumping into conspiracy bandwagon, I still can't see how "originated from bats" is better then "bioweapon" if neither has concrete evidence or proof.


There is ample proof of a connection to bats, including a 96% similarity of SARS-CoV-2 to a sampled bat coronavirus in Hubei province. Numerous papers, with ample evidence in that direction. Just not enough to speak definitively and categorically.

There is --zero-- evidence of a bioweapon.

So it's better in the sense that it's reflective of reality, which also happens to not inflame international relations at a crucial time.


One has plausibility and some evidence from DNA sequencing and mutation rates on its side, the other hasn‘t.


>the other hasn‘t

Just because some people don't believe that is likely, that does not mean it is not _plausable_

Is it plausible that there could be a biological lab in Wuhan? Yes, in fact, there is one.

Is it plausible that some countries do research on biological weapon? Yes, in fact there are multiple cases of such occasions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Biological_...

Is it plausible that biological lab can leak bioweapon? Yes, in fact this happened before, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak




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