Tag: Wuhan

Wuhan researcher claims China engineered COVID-19 as a ‘bioweapon’

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

China’s COVID origin study finds traces of virus in Wuhan market specimens

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

A team of Chinese researchers has published the long-awaited analysis of samples obtained more than three years ago from the Wuhan market, from where the COVID-19 epidemic is believed to have started. Even while it stopped short of offering a conclusive finding on the SARS-CoV-2 origin, it gives useful information that may be helpful for further investigation.

The samples, which were taken from market booths, surfaces, cages, and machinery inside the market, were the subject of a recent analysis that was just published in the journal Nature.

According to the study, swabs from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, linked to the start of the pandemic, included genetic material from wild animals and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

ALSO READ | Coronavirus Cases : India records over 6000 new COVID-19 cases, Mansukh Mandaviya to meet state health ministers today

“This suggests that it’s possible an animal could have been an intermediate host of a virus that spilled over to infect humans. But researchers say the latest findings still fall short of providing definitive proof that SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from an animal-to-human spillover event,” said the report published in the journal.

The experts are divided over whether the pandemic started in a lab or spread from wild animals to humans.

ALSO READ | Covid-19 discovery in raccoon dogs boosts case for virus’ natural origin

Nevertheless, according to researchers, genomic data is essential since it will enable further study that can provide hints about the pandemic’s origin.

According to evolutionary virologist Jesse Bloom, swabs collected in January 2020 only provide information about the animals that were at the market, so to find the COVID origins they need even earlier samples, Nature reported.

ALSO READ | FBI Director Christopher Wray says COVID-19 most likely leaked from Wuhan lab

The research is the most recent in a line of assessments of these market samples that have been published, and it is also the first to have undergone peer review.

It has been widely contested whether the outbreak originated naturally, with a virus spreading from animals to people, or as the result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Despite the Chinese government’s vehement denials that the virus originated in a research facility, the FBI and US Department of Energy both stated that they now consider that scenario to be the “most likely,” BBC reported.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Covid-19 discovery in raccoon dogs boosts case for virus’ natural origin

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

A new analysis of genetic samples collected from a seafood market in central China’s Wuhan city shows the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in raccoon dogs sold at the venue, strengthening the case for the natural origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a team of international experts.

The New York Times said in a report on Thursday that genetic data was drawn from swabs taken from in and around the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market starting in January 2020, “shortly after the Chinese authorities had shut down the market because of suspicions that it was linked to the outbreak of a new virus.”

The new evidence comes weeks after an intelligence assessment from the US Department of Energy pointed out that an “accidental laboratory leak” from a virology laboratory in Wuhan was most likely the cause of the pandemic.

Also read: Israel confirms new COVID-19 variant, health officials raise concern

While the animals had been cleared out from the market, researchers took swabs from the walls, floors, metal cages and carts used for transporting animal cages, the report said.

“In samples that came back positive for the coronavirus, the international research team found genetic material belonging to animals, including large amounts that were a match for the raccoon dog,” it said, quoting three scientists involved in the analysis.

The report noted that after the international team came across the new data, it reached out to Chinese researchers who had uploaded the files with an offer to collaborate.

However, after that, the sequences disappeared from GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data), it said.

The report said that the “jumbling together” of genetic material from the virus and the animal does not prove that a raccoon dog itself was infected.

Also read: What’s latest on H3N2 infection and COVID cases in India | Top points

“And even if a raccoon dog had been infected, it would not be clear that the animal had spread the virus to people. Another animal could have passed the virus to people, or someone infected with the virus could have spread the virus to a raccoon dog,” the report said.

“But the analysis did establish that raccoon dogs — fluffy animals that are related to foxes and are known to be able to transmit the coronavirus — deposited genetic signatures in the same place where genetic material from the virus was left,” according to the scientists.

They noted that the evidence was “consistent” with a scenario in which the virus had spilled into humans from a wild animal.

“But the genetic data from the market offers some of the most tangible evidence yet of how the virus could have spilled into people from wild animals outside a lab. It also suggests that Chinese scientists have given an incomplete account of evidence that could fill in details about how the virus was spreading at the Huanan market,” the report said.

The international team included an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona Michael Worobey; a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in California Kristian Andersen and a biologist at the University of Sydney Dr Edward Holmes. They started mining the new genetic data last week.

“One sample, in particular, caught their attention. It had been taken from a cart linked to a specific stall at the Huanan market that Holmes had visited in 2014,” the report said.

Also read: Risks associated with H3N2 virus and flu vaccination in India | Explained

That stall contained “caged raccoon dogs” on top of a separate cage holding birds, “exactly the sort of environment conducive to the transmission of new viruses.” “We were able to figure out relatively quickly that at least in one of these samples, there was a lot of raccoon dog nucleic acid, along with virus nucleic acid,” said Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who worked on the new analysis.

Goldstein cautioned that “we don’t have an infected animal, and we can’t prove definitively there was an infected animal at that stall.” “But given that the animals that were present in the market were not sampled at the time, this is as good as we can hope to get,” the virologist said.

The first coronavirus case was reported in China’s Wuhan Province in December 2019. Globally, there have been 760,360,956 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,873,477 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

Also read: H3N2 virus spreading in Maharashtra — Wear masks, avoid crowded places, hospitals on alert, says minister

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

China to drop travel tracing as it relaxes ‘zero-COVID’ policy

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

China will drop a travel tracing requirement as part of an uncertain exit from its strict “zero-COVID” policies that have elicited widespread dissatisfaction.

At midnight on Monday, the smart phone app will cease to function, meaning residents’ travels will not be traced and recorded, potentially reducing the likelihood they will be forced into quarantine for visiting pandemic hot spots.

China’s ruling Communist Party allows no independent parties to conduct verification and such apps have been used in past to suppress travel and free speech. It’s part of a package of apps that includes the health code, which has yet to be disabled.

Also read: Chinese protests indicate that people disagreed with government’s handling of COVID, says expert

The move follows the government’s snap announcement last week that it was ending many of the most draconian measures. That follows three years of lockdowns, travel restrictions and quarantines on those moving between provinces and cities, mandated testing, and requirements that a clean bill of health be shown to access public areas.

Last month in Beijing and several other cities, protests over the restrictions grew into calls for leader Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party step down, in a level of public political expression not seen in decades.

While met with relief, the relaxation has also sparked concerns about a new wave of infections potentially overwhelming health care resources in some areas.

Xi’s government is still officially committed to stopping virus transmission, the last major country to try. But the latest moves suggest the party will tolerate more cases without quarantines or shutting down travel or businesses as it winds down its “zero-COVID” strategy.

Facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, China is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals’ ability to deal with severe cases.

Also read: Tributes pour in for COVID-19 whistleblower Dr Li Wenliang as China relaxes zero-tolerance curbs

At the same time, the government reversed course by allowing those with mild symptoms to recuperate at home rather than being sent to field hospitals that have become notorious for overcrowding and poor hygiene.

Reports on the Chinese internet, which is tightly controlled by the government, sought to reassure a nervous public, stating that restrictions would continue to be dropped and travel, indoor dining and other economic activity would soon be returning to pre-pandemic conditions.

China’s leaders had long praised “zero-COVID” for keeping numbers of cases and deaths much lower than in other nations, but health officials are now saying the most prevalent omicron variety poses much less of a risk.

Amid a sharp drop in the amount of testing, China on Monday announced only around 8,500 new cases, bringing the nation’s total to 3,65,312 — more than double the level since October 1 — with 5,235 deaths. That compares to 1.1 million COVID-19 deaths in the United States.

Protests erupted November 25 after 10 people died in a fire in the northwestern city of Urumqi. Many believed COVID-19 restrictions may have impeded rescue efforts. Authorities denied the claims spread online, but demonstrators gave voice to longstanding frustration in cities such as Shanghai that have endured severe lockdowns.

Also read: China COVID-19 restrictions: Anti-lockdown protests intensify as cases hit record high

The party responded with a massive show of force and an unknown number of people were arrested at the protests or in the days following.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Tributes pour in for COVID-19 whistleblower Dr Li Wenliang as China relaxes zero-tolerance curbs

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

People across Chinese social media platforms are posting tributes to Dr Li Wenliang, one of the first individuals to warn about the threat of a brewing Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan when the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged at the end of 2019. The outpourings come as China has finally and surprisingly backtracked from its Zero-Covid policy following massive protests in the country.

In a surprising show of civil dissent, citizens, workers and students across the country protested after frustration regarding President Xi Jinping’s strategy to deal with COVID-19 by instituting mass lockdowns, using state-operated quarantine centres, and mass testing.

ALSO READ: China COVID-19 restrictions: Anti-lockdown protests intensify as cases hit a record high

Users on Weibo, China’s Twitter clone, wrote in support of the ophthalmologist. “It’s been three years, Dr Li, it’s over,” read a comment. “Three years later, friends around me are testing positive one after another, and the epidemic has entered a new stage,” read another.

Dr Li had become a symbol of dissent against China’s COVID-19 policy. The doctor was publically reprimanded by Wuhan police and authorities in January 2020 for ‘spreading rumours’ about a new SARS outbreak in Wuhan. After a spate of patients with pneumonia-like cases without any apparent cause presented at Wuhan Central Hospital, Dr Li found through internal hospital communication, which was being shared across medical professionals, that SARS coronavirus was the probable cause.

Dr Li shared the information with his private group chat of alumni from his batch at the Wuhan University of Clinical Medicine, asking individuals to be cautious and safe. Once the messages were spread on Chinese social media platforms, Dr Li was summoned by authorities and then reprimanded for being a rumour monger along with seven other doctors.

ALSO READ: China COVID protest Highlights: Everyone has the right to protest peacefully, says US

After returning to work, Dr Li contracted COVID-19 just days after it was officially identified. Li died from the disease within weeks. His death had at the time triggered an outpouring of criticism and anger, especially in light of the draconian lockdown measures taken in China to control the spread of the disease.

“If everyone paid attention to this matter at that time, perhaps there would not be an outbreak like today. I don’t think I belong to spreading rumours, I am reminding everyone to take precautions,” Dr Li had told reporters from Beijing News in an interview just a week before his death. Dr Li was just 33 at the time of his death.

While China has managed to keep caseload and death tolls in control, even if severely underreported as many suspect, the Zero-Covid policy has made it harder for the population to start living with COVID-19 as the rest of the world has started to. China’s caseload stands at over 360,000, much less than just the death toll in countries like the US, Russia, Brazil and India. However, with a majority of the population not exposed to the virus, the opening up of the country could cause a massive spurt in cases and deaths.

ALSO READ: China COVID protests: Police out in numbers to prevent more demonstrations against strict curbs

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

COVID-19 origin more likely to be research-related, suggests US Senate Committee report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

As scientists are still scrambling to find the source of the viral infections, a new analysis by a US Senate on COVID-19 origins suggests that the “pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident”.

But the report offers little new evidence to suggest this. It said that “lack of transparency” and restrictions on information by officials in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “prevents reaching a more definitive conclusion”.

“More information is needed to arrive at a more precise, if not a definitive, understanding of the origins of SARS-CoV-2,” it said.

ALSO READ | Testing for viruses? A breathalyser can do the job, finds Bill Gates.

In December 2019, China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, was eventually identified. Later, in January 2020, Thailand confirmed a COVID-19 case, the first case recorded case outside of China.

Earlier claims on COVID-19 origin

Earlier research had suggested transmission of the virus from animals to human beings. Studies also hinted at China’s Wuhan market being the pandemic’s epicentre.

ALSO READ | China launches a COVID-19 vaccine inhaled through the mouth

Some other studies said, “SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for causing COVID-19 disease) was either created in a lab or was accidentally or intentionally released by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology”.

Moreover, China had also postulated the theory that the virus arrived in the country on the surface of imported frozen seafood.

‘Zoonotic spillover’ a faulty hypothesis?

In its interim report, the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions raised several questions over the “natural zoonotic spillover hypothesis”.

ALSO READ | Brain Fog: Know all about this COVID-19 symptom

It said that SARS-CoV-2 originating from a bat virus is a “plausible explanation”. However, “it remains unknown how SARS-CoV-2 travelled more than 1,000 miles from Southern China or Southeast Asia before emerging in Wuhan”.

“Almost three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began there is still no evidence of an animal infected with SARS-CoV-2, or a closely related virus, before the first publicly reported human COVID-19 cases in Wuhan in December 2019,” it said.

It also places forth some facts and gaps in information. Among them, some of the arguments include:

1. If one exists, the intermediate host species for SARS-CoV-2 is not yet identified.

2. There is no published genetic evidence that shows SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in animals before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. The genomes of early COVID-19 cases did not show genetic evidence, in the form of adaptive mutations, that SARS-CoV-2 recently circulated in another animal species other than humans.

4. The genetic similarity between the environmental samples and human viral samples supports the likelihood that the virus found at the Huanan Seafood Market was shed by infected humans rather than by infected animals.

5. Wuhan was the only location where SARS-CoV-2 spilled over into humans, based on the available evidence. “After the unidentified source transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans, it stopped transmitting SARS-CoV-2. This is at odds with the precedent of the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic where infected palm civets continued to transmit the virus to humans and raccoon dogs.”

ALSO READ | Omicron XBB subvariant may trigger another COVID-19 wave, warns WHO chief scientist

‘Biosafety failures’ at Wuhan lab

Supporting the studies that suggested COVID-19 origin at a lab, the report mentioned the patents that indicated: “The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) struggled to maintain key biosafety capabilities at its high-containment BSL3 and BSL4 laboratories.”

ALSO READ | The COVID lab leak theory is dead. Here’s how we know the virus came from a Wuhan market

It also quoted the director of the WIV BSL4 laboratory as saying in 2019 that: “Currently, most laboratories lack specialized biosafety managers and engineers. Some of the skilled staff in such facilities is composed of part-time researchers. This makes it difficult to identify and mitigate potential safety hazards in facility and equipment operation early enough.

It also noted that a research-related incident is consistent with the “early epidemiology showing rapid spread of the virus in Wuhan”. It also mentioned “the likely index case” that an infected researcher might be the primary source of the virus in Wuhan.

“A research-related incident also explains the failure to find an intermediate host and any animal infections pre-dating human COVID-19 cases,” the report said.

ALSO READ | What these new studies suggest about where COVID-19 came from

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

The COVID lab leak theory is dead. Here’s how we know the virus came from a Wuhan market

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

My colleagues and I published the most detailed studies of the earliest events in the COVID-19 pandemic last month in the journal Science.

Together, these papers paint a coherent evidence-based picture of what took place in the city of Wuhan during the latter part of 2019.

The take-home message is the COVID pandemic probably did begin where the first cases were detected at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. At the same time this lays to rest the idea that the virus escaped from a laboratory.

Huanan market was the pandemic epicentre

An analysis of the geographic locations of the earliest known COVID cases dating to December 2019 revealed a strong clustering around the Huanan market.

This was true not only for people who worked at or visited the market, but also for those who had no links to it. Although there will be many missing cases, there’s no evidence of widespread sampling bias: the first COVID cases were not identified simply because they were linked to the Huanan market.

The Huanan market was the pandemic epicentre. From its origin there, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread to other locations in Wuhan in early 2020 and then to the rest of the world.

The Huanan market is an indoor space about the size of two soccer fields. The word seafood in its name leaves a misleading impression of its function. When I visited the market in 2014, a variety of live wildlife was for sale including raccoon dogs and muskrats.

At the time I suggested to my Chinese colleagues that we sample these market animals for viruses. Instead, they set up a virological surveillance study at the nearby Wuhan Central Hospital, which later cared for many of the earliest COVID patients.

Wildlife were also on sale in the Huanan market in 2019. After the Chinese authorities closed the market on January 1, 2020, investigative teams swabbed surfaces, door handles, drains, frozen animals and so on.

Most of the samples that later tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were from the south-western corner of the market. The wildlife I saw for sale on my visit in 2014 were in the south-western corner. This establishes a simple and plausible pathway for the virus to jump from animals to humans.

Animal spillover

SARS-CoV-2 has evolved into an array of lineages, some familiar to us as the variants of concern (what we call Delta, Omicron and so on).

The first split in the SARS-CoV-2 family tree between the A and B lineages occurred very early in the pandemic. Both lineages have an epicentre at the market and both were detected there.

Further analyses suggest the A and B lineages were the products of separate jumps from animals. This simply means there was a pool of infected animals in the Huanan market, fuelling multiple exposure events.

Reconstructing the history of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence through time showed the B lineage was the first to jump to humans. It was followed, perhaps a few weeks later, by the A lineage.

All these events are estimated to have occurred no earlier than late October 2019. Claims that the virus was spreading before this date can be dismissed.

What’s missing, of course, is that we don’t yet know exactly which animals were involved in the transfer of SARS-CoV-2 to humans. Live wildlife were removed from the Huanan market before the investigative team entered, increasing public safety but hampering origin hunting.

The opportunity to find the direct animal host has probably passed. As the virus likely rapidly spread through its animal reservoir, it’s overly optimistic to think it would still be circulating in these animals today.

The absence of a definitive animal source has been taken as tacit support for counter claims that SARS-CoV-2 in fact leaked from a scientific laboratory the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Death knell for the lab leak theory

The lab leak theory rests on an unfortunate coincidence: that SARS-CoV-2 emerged in a city with a laboratory that works on bat coronaviruses.

Some of these bat coronaviruses are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. But not close enough to be direct ancestors.

Sadly, the focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology has distracted us from a far more important connection: that, like SARS-CoV-1 (which emerged in late 2002) before it, there’s a direct link between a coronavirus outbreak and a live animal market.

Consider the odds that a virus that leaked from a lab was first detected at the very place where you would expect it to emerge if it in fact had a natural animal origin vanishingly low.

And these odds drop further as we need to link both the A and B lineages to the market. Was the market just the location of a super-spreading event? Nothing says so. It wasn’t a crowded location in the bustling and globally connected metropolis of Wuhan. It’s not even close to being the busiest market or shopping mall in the city.

For the lab leak theory to be true, SARS-CoV-2 must have been present in the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic started. This would convince me. But the inconvenient truth is there’s not a single piece of data suggesting this.

There’s no evidence for a genome sequence or isolate of a precursor virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Not from gene sequence databases, scientific publications, annual reports, student theses, social media, or emails.

Even the intelligence community has found nothing. Nothing. And there was no reason to keep any work on a SARS-CoV-2 ancestor secret before the pandemic.

To assign the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology requires a set of increasingly implausible what if? scenarios. These eventually lead to preposterous suggestions of clandestine bioweapon research.

The lab leak theory stands as an unfalsifiable allegation. If an investigation of the lab found no evidence of a leak, the scientists involved would simply be accused of hiding the relevant material.

If not a conspiracy theory, it’s a theory requiring a conspiracy. It provides a convenient vehicle for calls to limit, if not ban outright, gain-of-function research in which viruses with greatly different properties are created in labs. Whether or not SARS-CoV-2 originated in this manner is incidental.

Wounds that may never be healed

The acrid stench of xenophobia lingers over much of this discussion. Fervent dismissals by the Chinese scientists of anything untoward are blithely cast as lies. Yet during this crucial period these same scientists were going to international conferences and welcoming visitors.

Do we honestly believe they would have such a pathological disdain for the consequences of their actions? The debate over the origins of COVID has opened wounds that may never be healed. It has armed a distrust in science and fuelled divisive political opinion. Individual scientists have been assigned the sins of their governments.

The incessant blame game and finger pointing has reduced the chances of finding viral origins even further. History won’t judge this period kindly. Global collaboration is the bedrock of effective pandemic prevention, but we’re in danger of destroying rather than building relationships.

We may even be less prepared for a pandemic than in 2019. Despite political barriers and a salivating media, the evidence for a natural animal origin for SARS-CoV-2 has increased over the past two years. To deny it puts us all at risk.

Also read: Antibodies that may lead to next-gen vaccines for all COVID-19 strains found

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

China on brink of biggest COVID-19 crisis since Wuhan as cases triple

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

China’s high-tech Shenzhen city, which has a population of over 17 million, was the latest to shut down to control the surge of COVID-19 cases, as the government scrambled to contain the worst outbreak of virus cases in the last two years. Shenzhen will seal all communities, villages and suspend bus and metro services from Monday to Sunday due to the latest COVID-19 outbreak, state-run China Daily reported on Sunday.

Shenzhen which has been battling an Omicron surge since late February, will carry out three rounds of citywide COVID-19 tests next week. In a statement, city authorities urged the residents to work from home and to step out only to buy daily necessities.

After topping 1,000 new cases for two days in a row, new locally transmitted cases in China surged to more than 3,100, the National Health Commission reported on Sunday. This is the highest in two years. All outbound travellers from Shenzhen must submit negative nucleic acid test results taken within the previous 24 hours, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. The situation is such that China is on the brink of its biggest COVID-19 crisis since Wuhan, the Post report said.

The coronavirus first broke out in Wuhan in December 2019 before it spread to almost all parts of the world, claiming over 6 million lives so far. It is significant that cases in China are on the rise when most of the countries are opening up following decrease in cases.

China’s Zero COVID-19 case policy is coming increasingly under stress in the past few weeks as several cities including Shanghai and Beijing are witnessing fresh wave of cases. It came as 16 provinces reported new coronavirus infections, as did the four mega cities – Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing.

Some local health authorities have attributed the surge to the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible but causes less severe symptoms than the original COVID-19 virus, the Post report said. Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan on Saturday urged regions experiencing severe epidemic outbreaks to clear COVID-19 cases among the general public in the shortest time possible.

As part of its COVID-19 responses, China has added antigen detection as an option for COVID-19 testing among the public, in efforts to boost the early discovery of COVID-19 cases. Shanghai asked the people of the city not to leave and those who do must hold a certificate for a negative nucleic acid test results taken 48 hours before departure, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The big spikes in cases came after a top Chinese official claimed on March 4 that China is one of the best performers in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic and attributed the success to its stringent zero-case policy of restricting national and international travel with proactive local lockdowns wherever the virus surfaced. China’s dynamic zero-COVID approach has worked in the country’s context, Zhang Yesui, spokesperson for National People’s Congress, the country’s Parliament, told media.

Meanwhile, the situation continues to deteriorate in Hong Kong where officials confirmed 27,647 new Covid-19 cases, including 11,858 positive, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday. The former British colony also reported 87 COVID-related deaths taking the overall toll to 3,729, the report said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

What these new studies suggest about where COVID-19 came from

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

The origins of the SARS CoV-2 virus are a highly debated political hot button that has galvanised some very strong rhetoric. The most commonly shared hypothesis is that the virus was spread through a live wild animal in the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China. The other hypothesis is that the virus was manufactured or discovered and then either leaked into the nearby wet market or intentionally spread by Chinese state actors.

Why Chinese state actors would seek to spread a pandemic by releasing it into their own cities is a question that the latter hypothesis has been unable to answer. As a result, it is generally accepted that the virus began spreading in humans due to either animal to human spillover at the market or because of a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a biomedical facility famous for its research on all types of coronaviruses.

But now two new preprint studies throw some light on the origins of the virus.

The two separate studies claim that the virus was spread to humans in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and that it was not one or two, but multiple spillover events that caused the virus to spread to the first 174 individuals who were hospitalised.

The scientists behind the ‘The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence’ used data from the World Health Organisation fact-finding mission to determine the origin of the SARS CoV-2.

“We used the maps in the WHO mission’s report on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to extract latitude and longitude for most of the known COVID-19 cases from Wuhan with symptom onset in December 2019,” said Michael Worobey, lead author of the study and the Professor and Head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, on Twitter.

We used the maps in the WHO mission’s report on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to extract latitude and longitude for most of the known COVID-19 cases from Wuhan with symptom onset in December 2019. pic.twitter.com/8u5OSnd7xk

— Michael Worobey (@MichaelWorobey) February 26, 2022

The scientists behind the study claim that the virus was spread from the market due to the geographical proximity of the first reported infections to the market itself. Also pointing towards this conclusion is the fact that several thousand specimens of various species of wild animals were being sold in the market. These animals were sourced from far-flung areas of the continent from remote jungles, and biomes, potentially carrying the virus on them.

Unlike most other wet markets in the country, the Huanan Seafood market had vendors selling species like raccoon dogs, Amur hedgehogs, Siberian weasels, hog badgers, Asian badgers, Chinese hares, Pallas’s squirrels, masked palm civets, Chinese bamboo rats, Malayan porcupines, coypus, marmots, red foxes, minks, red squirrels, wild boars and complex-toothed flying squirrels.

But the theory is not without its counterpoints. While the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention had found several environmental samples of the virus in the market, the organisation had stated that the market was not the origin for the virus as animal samples had not tested positive. Molecular clock studies that suggest the index case was infected in mid-October or early November also broaden the horizon of potential spillover points.

But it does support the same thoughts as the report published last year in The Lancet Journal, where two dozen biologists, ecologists, epidemiologists, physicians, public health experts and veterinarians stated that there was no scientific evidence of the virus was leaked from a lab in China.

The study ‘SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events’ at the same time suggests that the virus that jumped from animals to humans not only occurred more than twice but also from different lineages. Scientists found that there were two lineages of SARS CoV-2 during the start of the pandemic.

“Background info: there were two lineages of SC2 at the beginning of the pandemic: A and B,” stated Jonathan Pekar, the lead study of the author on Twitter.

We released 2 preprints on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2) over the weekend. Long 🧵👇

1. SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic eventshttps://t.co/nMpj0Q5Z1A

1/

— Jonathan Pekar (@jepekar) March 4, 2022

Lineage A appeared to be older lineage and descended from bat coronaviruses, while the B lineage had a genetically distant relation to bat coronaviruses. Despite this, it was lineage B that was found predominantly in those infected around the Huanan market. From further studies, the scientists behind the paper were able to determine that since Lineages A and B were not each other’s ancestors, there must have been multiple introduction events to the human population which resulted in the birth of the COVID-19 pandemic as we know it today.

The results also hold more water since other coronaviruses like SARS CoV-1, which causes the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and the MERS CoV, which causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), also had multiple introduction points.

Read Also | Coronavirus may have origins in China’s biological warfare lab in Wuhan

But while these two studies throw more light on the issues, they are constrained by factors like time and access. The COVID-19 pandemic emerged over two years ago, and finding primary data is problematic.

“I think what they’re arguing could be true,” Jesse Bloom, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center virologist, told the New York Times. “But I don’t think the quality of the data is sufficient to say that any of these scenarios are true with confidence.”

Read Also | 59 labs around world handle deadliest pathogens only a quarter score high on safety

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

COVID-19 pandemic originated in animals in Wuhan market, studies find

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, originated in animals and spread to humans in late 2019 at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, two new studies suggest. The first study used spatial analysis to show that the earliest known COVID-19 cases, diagnosed in December 2019, were centered on the Wuhan market.

The researchers found that environmental samples that tested positive for the virus were strongly associated with the vendors selling live animals. “We used the maps in the WHO mission’s report on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to extract latitude and longitude for most of the known COVID-19 cases from Wuhan with symptom onset in December 2019,” Michael Worobey, a professor at the University of Arizona, US, tweeted.

“We found that cases in December were both nearer to, and more centered on, the Huanan market than could be expected. Its epicenter was at the market,” said Worobey, who was the author on both the research papers. A second study found that the two major viral lineages were the result of at least two events in which the virus jumped from animals to humans.

Also Read | India may see fourth COVID-19 wave around June 22: IIT Kanpur study

The first transmission most likely happened in late November or early December 2019, and the other lineage was probably introduced within weeks of the first event, the researchers said. These findings define the narrow window between when SARS-CoV-2 first jumped into humans and when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, they said.

“As with SARS-CoV-1 in 2002 and 2003, SARS-CoV-2 emergence likely resulted from multiple zoonotic events,” the authors wrote in the second research paper. The yet-to-be peer-reviewed studies, however, could not identify an animal at the market that spread the virus to humans.

“We show that, contrary to what some may have believed, wished to believe or asserted, live mammals susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 were present at the Huanan market in the crucial months of November and December 2019,” he added.

The findings support a report published last year in The Lancet Journal which was compiled by two dozen biologists, ecologists, epidemiologists, physicians, public health experts and veterinarians from around the world. The report had concluded that there was no scientifically validated evidence to support the theory that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory in China, and that peer-reviewed studies strongly suggest that the virus evolved in nature.

Also Read | Suspension of scheduled international passenger flights extended till further orders: DGCA

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow