Thread by @Ayjchan

Some experts have been misinformed that it took years to find the intermediate host of SARS1. Actually only took 2 months once the virus was isolated to find several infected animals at a market.

It has been ~2 years since SARS2 was detected - no intermediate host to be seen.

https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1456722457788702722

It is not normal that in 2019, with all of our greatly advanced tech, in a city housing the world's greatest expertise for tracking SARSrCoV outbreaks, it has been so challenging to find the proximal origin or intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2.

And we know that when SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, the local institute of virology had been actively working with at least 9 of the closest virus relatives to SARS-CoV-2 - all collected from a South China mine where 6 miners had sickened with a mysterious pneumonia, half died.

It's problematic that we don't have access to their database of 22,000+ pathogen samples, and that the institute had already begun risky experiments using known human pathogen MERS-CoV by 2018.

The above facts demonstrate that the existing framework and oversight for determining what types of pathogen research are risky and could lead to massive loss of life have completely failed us.

Here’s an article from May 2003 (SARS1 was identified in March 2003).

“Prof Yuen and his team believe the virus jumped straight from civets to humans, but say other animals may also have been involved in transmission.”

Google. It exists.

theguardian.com/world/2003/may…

The scientists submitted their manuscript to Science in May 2003.

"Our findings suggest that the markets provide a venue for the animal SCoV-like viruses [novel coronavirus] to amplify and transmit to new hosts, including humans."

cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspecti…

“The scientists also tested people who worked in the market for SARS antibodies. 40% of animal traders and 33% of workers who slaughtered animals had antibodies to the SARS virus, according to the report. In contrast, only 5% of people who sold vegetables had antibodies”

When SARS1 broke out again in 2004, it was traced to civets even more quickly- literally same week they diagnosed a waitress as the index case. cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspecti…

Scientists tend to be careful about making assertions so even today we cannot say for certain if civets did not catch SARS1 from humans and later caused the human outbreak.

But. Evidence was still found rapidly and in large volumes connecting SARS1 to a natural origin.