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But not the laboratories doing gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in the exact vicinity of the virus’s origin? Even considering that several workers of this laboratory got sick with COVID in 2019, right before the outbreak? C’mon, it’s been 4 years already, this is becoming ridiculous.

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fsh|1 year ago

I don't find this convincing at all.

Pandemics need high population densities to start, so it is very likely to have the origin in a large city. Even if a virus did emerge in a smaller city, it would probably fizzle out without raising alarm and being detected. At the same time, large cities in industrialized countries usually have at least one virology lab. I could easily find one in each of the top-10 most populous Chinese cities (which includes Wuhan). SARS is relatively new and hit China pretty hard, so it is also not surprising to have a lot of research in the country. Overall, it would probably be more surprising not to have a SARS research group close to the origin of a pandemic.

The lab worker story is bunk. According to the institute itself, no COVID antibodies were found in a serology study of the workers (see page 119 in https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/final-j...).

aodonnell2536|1 year ago

You’re linking a study from early 2021, which is before the admissions began to start. The WHO was dishonest throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, at this point in time this is well-known.

The Wuhan Virology Institute is in the heart of the city, and a quick Google search shows a population of 11 million in 2018. Is this not a large city?

I find it seriously troubling that people still believe the nonsense spewed about COVID-19 and it’s origins in 2020-21.

ahazred8ta|1 year ago

The WIV is 17 miles away from the wet market outbreak and they are on opposite sides of the river. The WIV did not do any gain of function experiments during 2019. Within a 15 mile radius of the WIV there were no covid cases during 2019. If lab workers had been the origin, the outbreak would have started near the lab, but it did not start near the lab.