As we've discussed, the greatest abundance of related viruses occurred around Yunnan and Southeast Asia. Dr. Shi herself didn't expect spillover in Wuhan:
> We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. I don't think the spillover from bats to humans occurred in Wuhan or in Hubei Province.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210727042832/https://www.scien...
Wuhan was "closer to the bats" only in the sense that New York City is "closer to the alligators" than Boston. There's little reason to choose that phrasing except to deliberately mislead.
I've warned repeatedly that the failure of competent scientists to engage with the real possibility that their research caused this pandemic will result in a blunt and damaging backlash. We're watching that damage now in real time.
And SARS-CoV-1 occurred in Guangzhou. The closest known relative virus (WIV16) is 96% homologous to SARS-CoV-1 and was found in Yunnan as well, which is over 1,000 km away from Guangzhou. Either the range of the bats carrying these coronaviruses is much larger than anyone in the world (including Dr Shi) knows about, or else the "blast radius" of the animal trade in China is considerably larger than anyone knows about.
I don't think spillover of SARS-1 from bats in Guangzhou is commonly proposed. If you've seen it (and didn't just include that option for completeness), then I'd appreciate the reference.
I agree that unexpected things sometimes happen. Nobody expected spillover in Wuhan pre-pandemic though, and the WIV absolutely wasn't situated based on any such expectation.
The SARS-CoV-1 virus moved over 1000km from Yunnan to Guangzhou.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus moved over 1000km from Yunnan to Wuhan.
This is the same fucking problem. One way or another we know it has a solution that doesn't involve WIV due to the SARS-CoV-1 spillover.
If we can explain SARS-CoV-1 without WIV then we can explain SARS-CoV-2 without WIV.
> I don't think spillover of SARS-1 from bats in Guangzhou is commonly proposed.
I never suggested that was definitely what happened, and I kind of doubt it, I think the wildlife trade is more likely. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if the range of the viruses in bats is larger than we know right now.
> Nobody expected spillover in Wuhan pre-pandemic though
Which doesn't mean it didn't happen.
> and the WIV absolutely wasn't situated based on any such expectation.
The central location made Yunnan a lot more accessible than if WIV was in Beijing, and puts it around about the same distance from Yunnan as Guangzhou is.
I guess we're just endlessly arguing the same uncertain technicalities now. I miss the days when actual new information was becoming available, and appreciated the chance to discuss with someone informed with opposing views. It would be nice to confidently learn the truth someday. Perhaps the new administration will release something, but I think it's much more likely they'll just poison the topic politically even more.
The outbreak was likely to happen in a large population center near where the bats were. The actual probability that it went north and happened in Wuhan was probably 1-in-12 or so. And the first time there was a coronavirus spillover and pandemic, it happened in Guangzhou. So we rolled 1d12 once and didn't get a 1 and then rolled it again and did. Not that mind-blowingly improbable.
Also, not surprising that the lab was in a major city somewhat central and closer to the bats than e.g. Beijing. Because that is what it was set up to study.
> Now add in the fact that lab workers at that lab got hospitalized with respiratory symtpoms in November.
This has been asserted by a story in the NYT, but never proven and denied by WIV. There's literally no evidence of this.
> and that the virus in question is remarkably similar to one they found in 2013 thousands of miles away,
Still roughly a thousand base pairs and a few decades of evolution away from SARS-CoV-2. You can't get from RaTG-13 to SARS-CoV-2 in a lab, and there's no evidence they ever had live virus RaTG-13 in the lab.
> and that the COVID virus has just such a furan cleavage site
It had a novel PRRAR furin cleavage site which had never been seen before. Not one that humans would have ever guessed. That is actually strong evidence AGAINST it being lab-made.