I’m hearing from some readers that fb and maybe twitter are flagging this article as misinformation ~24h after posting. Let’s see what happens! bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/09/0…
I think I figured out what's happening. It's past 24h now and I have not seen a misinformation warning on shares of the article (thank goodness). The misinfo tag pops up when people share the article alongside text saying that SARS2 was most likely engineered in a lab.
For the record, I think all 3 scenarios: pre-adaptation, pre-circulation in humans, lab-based origins are -plausible- and must continue to be investigated. It's not productive to be guessing the probabilities of each scenario. Game-changing evidence can emerge any time.
Take a look at the past 9 months: people were going crazy about the seafood market & Chinese people eating bats in early 2020, then we went through a pangolin phase (some continue to swear by pangolins being the intermediate host), and now pre-circulation in humans is in vogue...
How SARS2 transmitted from bats, maybe through an intermediate host, into humans is still an open question with no evidence of the virus having ever passed through an intermediate. Despite testing millions of people & animals worldwide, we haven't found a SARS2 precursor/sibling.
It's like someone looking for their keys the morning after a long night of partying. They've ransacked their coats, laundry, living room (the most likely places), but are refusing to check the bedroom or kitchen because they've never left their keys in these areas before...
It could be unlikely, but maybe in a few minutes, they'll remember that they raided the fridge for leftovers last night and left the keys in there by accident for the first time ever. You may as well check the kitchen/fridge before pulling the floorboards out of the living room.
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