Wuhan market had role in virus outbreak, but more research needed - WHO

[snoop1130]

Wuhan market had role in virus outbreak, but more research needed - WHO

By Stephanie Nebehay

 

FILE PHOTO: A woman wearing a face mask sits next to a fruit stall at a residential area after the lockdown was lifted in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province and China's epicentre of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, April 11, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo

 

GENEVA (Reuters) - A wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan played a role in the outbreak of the novel coronavirus last year, as the source or possibly as an "amplifying setting", the World Health Organization said on Friday, calling for more research.

 

Chinese authorities shut down the market in January as part of efforts to halt the spread of the virus and ordered a temporary ban on trade and consumption of wildlife.

 

"The market played a role in the event, that's clear. But what role we don't know, whether it was the source or amplifying setting or just a coincidence that some cases were detected in and around that market," said Dr Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert on food safety and zoonotic viruses that cross the species barrier from animals to humans.

 

It was not clear whether live animals or infected vendors or shoppers may have brought the virus into the market, he told a Geneva news briefing.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said there is "a significant amount of evidence" the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory, although he has also said there wasn't certainty.

 

No public evidence has linked the outbreak to the lab in Wuhan and scientists have said the coronavirus appears to have developed in nature. A German intelligence report cast doubts on Pompeo's allegations, Der Spiegel reported.

 

Ben Embarek did not address the accusations.

 

He noted that it took researchers a year to identify camels as the source of the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) virus, a coronavirus that emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and spread in the Middle East, adding: "It's not too late."

 

"What is important, what would be of great help, is to get hold of the virus before it adapted to humans, before the version we have now. Because then we would better understand how it adapted to humans, how it evolved," he said.

 

"In terms of investigations, China has most probably, most likely, all the expertise needed to do these investigations. They have lot of very qualified researchers to that," he said.

 

A common sight across Asia, wet markets traditionally sell fresh produce and live animals, such as fish, in the open air.

 

Many markets worldwide that sell live animals must be better regulated and hygiene conditions improved, and some should be closed down, Ben Embarek said. "But the vast majority can be fixed, can be better organised."

 

It is often a question of controlling waste management, the movement of people and goods, and of separating live animals from animal products and from fresh goods, he said.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-05-08

 

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[daveAustin]

Quote

"In terms of investigations, China has most probably, most likely, all the expertise needed to do these investigations. They have lot of very qualified researchers to that," he said.

Not too keen about broadcasting results, though, unless it suits them. 

[Mama Noodle]

18 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

"In terms of investigations, China has most probably, most likely, all the expertise needed to do these investigations. They have lot of very qualified researchers to that,"

 

Yeah, because they have been so transparent this whole time. 

[ukrules]

Someone who already had the virus went shopping at the market and infected some of the stall holders and it spread further from there.

 

So what? That's how a disease spreads. It was also detected elsewhere and before the market outbreak.

 

The market is a distraction, forget about the market.

[Sujo]

26 minutes ago, Mama Noodle said:

 

Yeah, because they have been so transparent this whole time. 

Trump said they were.

[dastakantattaka]

1 hour ago, ukrules said:

Someone who already had the virus went shopping at the market and infected some of the stall holders and it spread further from there.

Where did that someone contract the virus?

 

* In China? Then it indeed originated in ... China!

* Not in China? Then why that someone had not infected other people in other countries before he arrived to China?

Edited May 8, 2020 by dastakantattaka

[ukrules]

21 minutes ago, dastakantattaka said:

Where did that someone contract the virus?

Apparently it's a state secret so draw your own conclusions from that. If it makes China look bad then it's secret, if it makes China look good then it's shouted from the rooftops.

 

There's a guy out there from Wales (Connor Reed) who had this virus at the end of November and I'm sure he wasn't the first case, he lives in Wuhan and contracted the disease a month 'before it existed' based on what they're saying about the market. Connor did a video interview with Sky News which is available online if you google 'Connor Reed Wuhan'.

 

They're very sneaky and always have been when it comes to covering up Chinese plagues. Lets look back in history a little -nearly every plague came out of China.

 

People seem to think the 1918 flu originated from the US, the Chinese did a great job of covering up here and even if you now go looking on google you won't find much if you search for '1918 flu China' and there's a reason for that.

 

They didn't call it 'flu' in China, they called it 'winter sickness'. If you google 'winter sickness 1917' and see what comes up it tells a very different story when compared with a similar search with the word flu in it. It's almost like there's still some kind of cover up going on.

 

That's not a typo when I mention 1917 for the google search, it was in China a year before the rest of the world which makes sense when you think about it, because that's its origin.

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by ukrules

[Relocated]

So pangolin has nothing to do with virus? 

Pangolin wouldn't be happy to hear that.

[candide]

28 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Apparently it's a state secret so draw your own conclusions from that. If it makes China look bad then it's secret, if it makes China look good then it's shouted from the rooftops.

 

There's a guy out there from Wales (Connor Reed) who had this virus at the end of November and I'm sure he wasn't the first case, he lives in Wuhan and contracted the disease a month 'before it existed' based on what they're saying about the market. Connor did a video interview with Sky News which is available online if you google 'Connor Reed Wuhan'.

 

They're very sneaky and always have been when it comes to covering up Chinese plagues. Lets look back in history a little -nearly every plague came out of China.

 

People seem to think the 1918 flu originated from the US, the Chinese did a great job of covering up here and even if you now go looking on google you won't find much if you search for '1918 flu China' and there's a reason for that.

 

They didn't call it 'flu' in China, they called it 'winter sickness'. If you google 'winter sickness 1917' and see what comes up it tells a very different story when compared with a similar search with the word flu in it. It's almost like there's still some kind of cover up going on.

 

That's not a typo when I mention 1917 for the google search, it was in China a year before the rest of the world which makes sense when you think about it, because that's its origin.

 

Thank you for drawing our attention to this less known possible origin.

 

However, your conspiracy theory doesn't work. "1918 flu China" works quite well on Google. In third position, I found this quite interesting article. 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by candide

[ukrules]

3 minutes ago, candide said:

Thank you for pointing our attention to this less known possible origin.

 

However, your conspiracy theory doesn't work. "1918 flu China" works quite well on Google. In third position, I found this quite interesting article. 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/

 

That's very interesting, my observations mentioned above were not from today. They were from weeks back, the results are changing, maybe due to more people clicking them.

[rabas]

37 minutes ago, Retarded said:

So pangolin has nothing to do with virus? 

Pangolin wouldn't be happy to hear that.

Pangolin was a bit of a misunderstanding after the Chinese announced they had found a Pangolin conona virus that was 99% the same as nCoV-SARS2. However, only the small spike region was 99%, the rest of the genome was just 90% similar. 

 

Bat Woman's Hunnan bat conona virus is still closest at 96.9%, much closer than SARS-1.

Edited May 8, 2020 by rabas

[Puchaiyank]

I have a theory...it is a designer virus...specifically targeting the elderly of the world.

 

Elderly, retirees, have stopped being productive, overwhelms the healthcare systems, cost some governments major amounts of their income and are considered by many as unnecessary leaches of natural resources...

 

Presto...all gone...soon forgotten!

[Tug]

6 hours ago, ukrules said:

Apparently it's a state secret so draw your own conclusions from that. If it makes China look bad then it's secret, if it makes China look good then it's shouted from the rooftops.

 

There's a guy out there from Wales (Connor Reed) who had this virus at the end of November and I'm sure he wasn't the first case, he lives in Wuhan and contracted the disease a month 'before it existed' based on what they're saying about the market. Connor did a video interview with Sky News which is available online if you google 'Connor Reed Wuhan'.

 

They're very sneaky and always have been when it comes to covering up Chinese plagues. Lets look back in history a little -nearly every plague came out of China.

 

People seem to think the 1918 flu originated from the US, the Chinese did a great job of covering up here and even if you now go looking on google you won't find much if you search for '1918 flu China' and there's a reason for that.

 

They didn't call it 'flu' in China, they called it 'winter sickness'. If you google 'winter sickness 1917' and see what comes up it tells a very different story when compared with a similar search with the word flu in it. It's almost like there's still some kind of cover up going on.

 

That's not a typo when I mention 1917 for the google search, it was in China a year before the rest of the world which makes sense when you think about it, because that's its origin.

 

Oh no we can’t have this it doesent fit trumps conspiracy theories so he can blame someone else for his shortcomings oh dear!and sorry the 1918 pandemic started in the American Midwest you are wrong 

[Crazy Alex]

2 minutes ago, Tug said:

Oh no we can’t have this it doesent fit trumps conspiracy theories so he can blame someone else for his shortcomings oh dear!and sorry the 1918 pandemic started in the American Midwest you are wrong 

Interesting you brought up the 1918 pandemic. 50,000,000 people died. No shut down.

[Inn Between]

China's wildlife wet markets MUST be shut down!!! But there doesn't seem to be any chance that's going to happen as they've already been opened back up again. Ultra-liberals will cry "foul" at such suggestions, but the truth of the matter is that poor or no standards of safety and hygiene exist at them, and the next, quite possibly worse, pandemic will ultimately come from China again. Is it fair that the rest of the world should just sit, waiting to be exposed to hundreds of thousands more innocent deaths from their dangerously heathen and barbaric customs of eating things that really have to right to be eaten, like bats, which have been documented many times to be horribly diseased-carrying animals?

 

I would love to see the rest of the world unite on a prohibition of any travelers from China until it has been confirmed that China has shut down these very dangerous and barbaric markets. There is nothing at all fair about China being able to carry on in an irresponsible way, endangering everyone else. 

[ukrules]

1 hour ago, Tug said:

Oh no we can’t have this it doesent fit trumps conspiracy theories so he can blame someone else for his shortcomings oh dear!and sorry the 1918 pandemic started in the American Midwest you are wrong 

Same disease (H1N1) present in China in 1917, it was known as 'winter sickness 1917' - google it.

 

It was first detected in the US, various reasons for this, one being the 100k Chinese WW1 front line workers moving through North America. Conincidence? I think not and neither do a lot of others.

[Pattaya46]

13 minutes ago, Inn Between said:

from their dangerously heathen and barbaric customs of eating things that really have to right to be eaten

Uh? A bit out of topic but who decides which food is barbaric customs??

You don't show from which country you are,

but I doubt there is no food that I wouldn't call "barabic food customs"...

[ukrules]

1 hour ago, Crazy Alex said:

Interesting you brought up the 1918 pandemic. 50,000,000 people died. No shut down.

If you dig a little deeper there were plenty of shutdowns back then. Not like today but they were there.

 

There were also some serious mistakes from which we may be able to learn. San Francisco springs to mind - third wave in 1919

[lkv]

24 minutes ago, Inn Between said:

China's wildlife wet markets MUST be shut down!!!

Why are you worried about the wet markets, I don't get it.

 

It was human to human transmission from the lab.

 

Some guy accidentally spilt a tube in the lab, got infected, gave it to some others, then eventually someone of these others got hungry, and went to the market to buy food.

Edited May 8, 2020 by lkv

[Inn Between]

5 minutes ago, Pattaya46 said:

Uh? A bit out of topic but who decides which food is barbaric customs??

You don't show from which country you are,

but I doubt there is no food that I wouldn't call "barabic food customs"...

Well, I distinctly cited eating disease-ridden bats as a barbaric custom, didn't I? And I'll stick to that opinion whatever any ridiculously over-zealot liberal wants to say about "protecting people's customs". If those are dangerous customs, it's time for them to go.

 

As for the highlighted bit in your post, what does that even mean? Are you saying that the consumption of all food is barbaric? If I eat a salad and some bread, are you saying that's barbaric?  

[Inn Between]

11 minutes ago, lkv said:

Why are you worried about the wet markets, I don't get it.

 

It was human to human transmission from the lab.

 

Some guy accidentally spilt a tube in the lab, got infected, gave it to some others, then eventually someone of these others got hungry, and went to the market to buy food.

You and the WHO do not agree.  Here's their quick info about the origin of coronaviruses: 

 

What is coronavirus? Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that range from the common cold to MERS coronavirus, which is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus and SARs, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus.

 

Where do coronaviruses come from? Corona viruses are circulating in animals and some of these coronaviruses have the capability of transmitting between animals and humans. We call that a spillover event.

 

[candide]

10 minutes ago, Inn Between said:

Well, I distinctly cited eating disease-ridden bats as a barbaric custom, didn't I? And I'll stick to that opinion whatever any ridiculously over-zealot liberal wants to say about "protecting people's customs". If those are dangerous customs, it's time for them to go.

 

As for the highlighted bit in your post, what does that even mean? Are you saying that the consumption of all food is barbaric? If I eat a salad and some bread, are you saying that's barbaric?  

Surprisingly enough, I discovered that bats are considered as a gourmet dish in several countries, including until recently in Italy. ????

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_as_food

Edited May 8, 2020 by candide

[lkv]

4 minutes ago, Inn Between said:

Where do coronaviruses come from? Corona viruses are circulating in animals and some of these coronaviruses have the capability of transmitting between animals and humans. We call that a spillover event.

 

Yeah, well, WHO also told us at the beginning there is no human to human transmission.

 

Which is why the US is basically trashing them right now.

 

So the Wuhan lab was doing research and testing on these exact coronaviruses. One of the plausible theories is that a member of staff got accidentally infected, and then passed it to others, by simply walking out of that lab.

Edited May 8, 2020 by lkv

[candide]

1 minute ago, lkv said:

Yeah, well WHO also told us at the beginning there is no human to human transmission.

No, they never did.

[lkv]

1 minute ago, candide said:

No, they never did.

Yes, they did.

[Inn Between]

9 minutes ago, lkv said:

Yeah, well, WHO also told us at the beginning there is no human to human transmission.

 

No, the Chinese told the WHO that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, which delayed the WHO getting the real info to start containment efforts

 

EDITED: Thank you! I see you have just confirmed this in the post above. 

Edited May 8, 2020 by Inn Between

[lkv]

6 minutes ago, Inn Between said:

 

EDITED: Thank you! I see you have just confirmed this in the post above. 

Yeah, look, that's fair. I thought about that. They basically took fake information and passed it onwards.

 

The World Health Organisation.

 

It's debatable but yeah. I do agree with your point also.

Edited May 8, 2020 by lkv

[candide]

27 minutes ago, lkv said:

Yes, they did.

Here is the official statement by WHO on exactly the same day (not a Chinese statement such as the one they reported in their news feed above):

 

"GENEVA, Jan 14 (Reuters) - There has been “limited” human-to-human transmission of a new coronavirus that has struck in China, mainly small clusters in families, but there is potential for wider spread, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday."

https://www.reuters.com/article/china-health-pneumonia-who/who-says-new-china-virus-could-spread-its-warning-all-hospitals-idUSL8N29F48F

 

Don't trust Trump's tweets! ????

[lkv]

4 minutes ago, candide said:

 

Don't trust Trump's tweets! ????

It's on the official account of WHO on Twitter.....

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52573137

 

14 January - The WHO posts on Twitter that "preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission."

[lkv]

But here, we have a small inconsistency

 

https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/27-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19

 

14 January 2020

WHO's technical lead for the response noted in a press briefing there may have been limited human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus (in the 41 confirmed cases), mainly through family members, and that there was a risk of a possible wider outbreak. The lead also said that human-to-human transmission would not be surprising given our experience with SARS, MERS and other respiratory pathogens.