The pieces of the puzzle of Covid-19’s origin are coming to light

Non-registration-nag version: http://archive.is/jvQGd

Talking about it, why "local superstition" is still called "traditional medicine" with a respect that modern medicine, (based in hard tests and long years of research do not always receive), still puzzles me.

A really well written article with many solid bits to think about it, an none of the common BS. Things like, for example.

"earliest time for this [unique] transfer [from secondary host to humans, is calculated] as early October 2019"

"In one experiment Chinese, American and Italian scientists, explored the disease-like potential of a bat coronavirus by recombining its genome with that of a mouse-infecting coronavirus"

Fairly well balanced presentation, even if behind paywall. IIRC, Economist lets one create an account and read 5 free articles.

One aspect that is particularly worrisome:

> Western experts say categorically that the sequence of the new virus’s genome—which Chinese scientists published early on, openly and accurately—reveals none of the telltales genetic engineering would leave in its wake. But it remains a fact that in Wuhan, where the outbreak was first spotted, there is a laboratory where scientists have in the past deliberately made coronaviruses more pathogenic.

[...]

> In 2017 WIV opened the first biosecurity-level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory in China—the sort of high-containment facility in which work is done on the most dangerous pathogens. A large part of Dr Shi’s post-SARS research there has been aimed at understanding the potential which viruses still circulating among bats have to spill over into the human population. In one experiment she and Ge Xingyi, also of the WIV, in collaboration with American and Italian scientists, explored the disease-like potential of a bat coronavirus, SHC014-CoV, by recombining its genome with that of a mouse-infecting coronavirus. The WIV newsletter of November 2015 reported that the resulting virus could “replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titres equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV”. In early April this newsletter and all others were removed from the institute’s website.

[...]

> Many scientists think that with so many biologists actively hunting for bat viruses, and gain-of-function work becoming more common, the world is at increasing risk of a laboratory-derived pandemic at some point. “One of my biggest hopes out of this pandemic is that we address this issue—it really worries me,” says Dr Pilch. Today there are around 70 BSL-4 sites in 30 countries. More such facilities are planned.