Comment by derbOac

Given all the suppression and secrecy that was going on at the time of the outbreak, I'm never sure what to make of studies like this. It's impressive in how detailed it is but it's also been years and there's so many variables that could come into play.

The article even states that it "has been proposed that humans could have introduced the virus into the Huanan market. It is most likely that there were human infections of SARS-CoV-2 earlier than the first documented and hospitalized market cases, including unascertained market cases or contacts thereof."

Also, "The detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the Huanan market in January 2020 could plausibly reflect deposition several weeks before sampling, compatible with estimated dates of the first human infections."

The authors have counterpoints but I sort of feel like anything is on the table at this point, and I'm not sure I find their counterpoints convincing.

In general, these epidemiological/public health-type studies of COVID19 origins have this tendency to assume a zoonotic origin, or a typical "natural origin" and then proceed accordingly, rather than to acknowledge it's one of many possible scenarios, and then proceed from that. For just one example, they add in their counterpoints "any hypothesis of COVID-19’s emergence has to explain how the virus arrived at one of only four documented live wildlife markets in a city of Wuhan’s size at a time when so few humans were infected." But this really should say "when so few humans were publicly known to be infected." It also assumes the data itself is sound, even though it is based on data first publicly published on in April 2023.

I suspect they take this approach because to consider the full range of options leads to too much uncertainty they can't address.

I hate being so skeptical but there's so much to be suspicious about, including the cover-ups by Daszak and colleagues, the Chinese government, American governmental institutions, and just the sheer amount of time that went by with nothing happening despite the historical import of this virus. It doesn't appear that people who were in a position to do anything about figuring out where the virus came from really wanted to know.