Origins of Covid

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by carlitos

Excuse my ignorance, but I was wondering whether one or more of the lab workers got it "naturally" as well. Hadn't considered that they might have got sick while collecting samples.

Serology on WiV staff apparently showed no sign of previous Covid infection.

Lab leak supporters claim this is evidence of a cover-up and want someone other than China to repeat these tests. Any test performed now wouldn't be valid since the infection could have occurred in the year and a half since the pandemic started. The cover-up claims are essentially impossible to prove or disprove at this point.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

So this is probably going to cause some commotion...

one of the members of the WHO investigation, Paul Embarek, was giving some information about their trip to China and how China did not want any possibility of a lab leak to be in the report. This actually doesn't sound that weird, and the WHO themselves pointed out that they had to address the question even if only to say it was unlikely. Embarek spitballed that one possible way in which the lab could be implicated is if a worker at the WIV got infected in the field:

Link

I'd be interested to see the whole interview although I can imagine that much of what Embarek says is likely to be quote-mined or repackaged as:

"WHO INVESTIGATOR NOW SAYS COVID PROBABLY FROM A LAB!"

You know a lab worker getting infected directly from the Yunnan bats is not a new idea, right? It was always on the lab origin list. Or it could have been a student.

I tried to find any evidence of trips to the mine or other places in Yunnan in the fall/winter of 2019 and I couldn't find any. Doesn't mean it didn't happen but it does mean there still was no direct evidence. And there should still be a virus sample from the mine or nearby which is a closer match than the one trotted out as the 'closest ancestor'. Not to mention, why hide patient zero if there was one connected to the WIV?

I find that last sentence in your post to be hyperbole, but this is one of the biggest problems:

Quote:

However, Embarek told TV 2 that while investigators were able to get access to laboratories in Wuhan, China, and have their questions answered, "we did not get to look at any documentation at all."

So we have the location of the first cases.
No immediate/proximal source animal.
And the Chinese unwilling to allow a proper look.

One could explain that last one by the fact Dump was POTUS at the time. But he's out of office now. And one would think China would want to clear its name. OTOH, I would think neither China nor the US trust the other in this matter.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by carlitos

Excuse my ignorance, but I was wondering whether one or more of the lab workers got it "naturally" as well. Hadn't considered that they might have got sick while collecting samples.

Although if they had got it in the wild, it would make the whole database thing and the “gain of function” thing a complete red herring, not to mention the fact that it would actually be a spillover and NOT a lab leak.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Although if they had got it in the wild, it would make the whole database thing and the “gain of function” thing a complete red herring, not to mention the fact that it would actually be a spillover and NOT a lab leak.

Re the database: collecting specimens resulting in a worker or student infection should mean that the proximal source was likely in the database.

And pictures of the workers/students collecting specimens and caring for the live bats at the WIV include images and accounts of direct exposures to bites, scratches, and skin due to lack of PPE. (Sources cited in this thread.)

It would hardly be a natural spillover event if a worker/student were infected collecting specimens for the WIV.

As for GoF, yeah, that might not have been part of such a scenario.

[Samson]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Although if they had got it in the wild, it would make the whole database thing and the “gain of function” thing a complete red herring, not to mention the fact that it would actually be a spillover and NOT a lab leak.

So the pandemic started due to the existence of the lab.

No lab.
No pandemic.

If not p then not q.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Samson

So the pandemic started due to the existence of the lab.

Stupid conclusion is stupid.

First of all, we are talking about speculation.

Second, this is like the stupid conclusion that Jon Stewart came up with "The pandemic was caused by science.

Even if (and this is a big if), it came from a lab worker being bitten in the field by a bat, we are still talking about bats in the in the wild. In which case, they could also be biting miners, or farm workers, or urinating in someone's juice etc...

[William Parcher]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

urinating in someone's juice etc...

Watch out where the bad bats go
And don't you drink that yellow juice.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Stupid conclusion is stupid.

First of all, we are talking about speculation.

Second, this is like the stupid conclusion that Jon Stewart came up with "The pandemic was caused by science.

Even if (and this is a big if), it came from a lab worker being bitten in the field by a bat, we are still talking about bats in the in the wild. In which case, they could also be biting miners, or farm workers, or urinating in someone's juice etc...

I don't recall Stewart said that. He did say prematurely that the coincidence made it conclusive. And not like him to do so, he used his political microphone to drift away from the science.

I fail to see how a worker or student collecting specimens for the WIV is the same as a casual exposure of people in the vicinity. That seems to me like an attempt to shoehorn 'spillover' into the equation where it's dicey to claim that at best.

However, that hypothesis that it could have been anyone in Yunnan still leaves you with the hurdle that it did not start in Yunnan, or Guangdong but rather in Wuhan and not just anywhere in Wuhan but close to the labs in the city/province (of 11 million people BTW) where coronaviruses were being studied.

[Skeptic Ginger]

And speaking of epidemiology, I came across these sources and I don't know if they've been posted in this thread before, they probably have been. A number of sources cited early in the thread can now be revisited to see how they fit in with additional information that has been posted since.

I've asked and it hasn't been answered if there were 2 lineages early on where did those lineages arise?

I've seen 2 (I think) different analysis that tried to place the A, B and C lineages in places distant from Wuhan. Bloom addressed the problem that to do that one had to ignore where the persons became infected and count them as if they were infected in the same place as they were diagnosed, thus distorting the temporal position these lineages fit in the scheme of things.

I also mentioned that one thing which did come out of the WHO final report was an examination of flu and pneumonia cases for all of 2019 in China and they found no unusual spikes in cases anywhere until the cases showed up in Wuhan.

Some additional epidemiological evidence was published by the CCDC in Feb in 2020 shortly after pandemic case numbers exploded. In looking for patient zero it helps to look at the epidemiology. How fast do cases increase once they enter a new location. It turns out, very quickly.

The Epidemiological Characteristics of an Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) — China, 2020

Quote:

Methods: All COVID-19 cases reported through February 11, 2020 were extracted from China’s Infectious Disease Information System. Analyses included the following: 1) summary of patient characteristics; 2) examination of age distributions and sex ratios; 3) calculation of case fatality and mortality rates; 4) geo-temporal analysis of viral spread; 5) epidemiological curve construction; and 6) subgroup analysis.

Results: A total of 72,314 patient records—44,672 (61.8%) confirmed cases, 16,186 (22.4%) suspected cases, 10,567 (14.6%) clinically diagnosed cases (Hubei Province only), and 889 asymptomatic cases (1.2%)—contributed data for the analysis. Among confirmed cases, most were aged 30–79 years (86.6%), diagnosed in Hubei (74.7%), and considered mild (80.9%). A total of 1,023 deaths occurred among confirmed cases for an overall case fatality rate of 2.3%. The COVID-19 spread outward from Hubei Province sometime after December 2019, and by February 11, 2020, 1,386 counties across all 31 provinces were affected. The epidemic curve of onset of symptoms peaked around January 23–26, then began to decline leading up to February 11. A total of 1,716 health workers have become infected and 5 have died (0.3%).

Conclusions: COVID-19 epidemic has spread very quickly taking only 30 days to expand from Hubei to the rest of Mainland China. With many people returning from a long holiday, China needs to prepare for the possible rebound of the epidemic.

See the map in the link as well as the graphs.

At the end of Dec 2019 all recognized cases were in Hubei Province in 14 counties. Just 10 days later cases had spread to 113 counties in 20 provinces. Then days after that there were cases in 627 counties in 30 provinces. Ten more days: 1310 counties in 31 provinces. By Feb 11 it was 1386 counties in 31 provinces. China has 31 provinces.

[note: What you see in addition to how quickly these cases spread is that when you get to the end of the timeframe being counted, it's not that numbers taper off. Rather it is that one isn't seeing existing cases that have not yet been diagnosed.]

We have what we need here and that is to demonstrate had cases started elsewhere in China and moved to Wuhan one would expect to see multiple foci of cases not just the one foci in Wuhan. IOW there would have been seeded clusters that converged rather than a single foci from which cases spread out.

That is true even if one missed additional foci at first.

And that point is especially important when you consider the next piece of data the CCDC provided. Dec 2020: Study from China's CDC suggests Wuhan may have had 10 times as many COVID-19 cases as reported - Wuhan, China, was the original epicenter of the pandemic.

Quote:

China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a serological survey in April among a sample of more than 34,000 people in the general population of Wuhan.
The CDC found 4.43 percent of those tested in Wuhan had antibodies for the virus, indicating they were infected some time in the past.
The ratio suggests the city of more than 11 million people may have had close to 500,000 infections, nearly 10 times the roughly 50,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases the city has reported.

There's no evidence to suggest Wuhan wasn't the center of the pandemic and there's evidence cases went from very few to as many as 500,000 within ~3 months.

It's easy to see how the first cases might indeed have started in Sept of 2019 as at least 2 sources cited upthread believe the data suggests. Efforts might have been made to control the outbreak and it's possible the Chinese believe they had. But they would have been wrong.


Next up, when and what was deleted from Chinese data bases and who was silenced?

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

I've seen 2 (I think) different analysis that tried to place the A, B and C lineages in places distant from Wuhan. Bloom addressed the problem that to do that one had to ignore where the persons became infected and count them as if they were infected in the same place as they were diagnosed, thus distorting the temporal position these lineages fit in the scheme of things.

I also mentioned that one thing which did come out of the WHO final report was an examination of flu and pneumonia cases for all of 2019 in China and they found no unusual spikes in cases anywhere until the cases showed up in Wuhan.

I don't know what you are referring to when you say that some different analyses "tried" to place the sources as being distant from Wuhan.

From what I can gather, basically everyone agrees it began in Wuhan (unless you can find some sources other than those that say, for example, it began in Italy or Fort Detrick, which nobody seriously believes).

The only thing that has been suggested is that it may have come to Wuhan through the wildlife trade. If that is the case, then maybe some people who raised the wildlife might have some kind of antibodies against SARS-CoV2 if they had been in prolonged contact with infected animals. But that is speculation.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

...It's easy to see how the first cases might indeed have started in Sept of 2019 as at least 2 sources cited upthread believe the data suggests.

Thanks for the paper on the start and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Skeptic Ginger.

The news article is a reporter is hyping well known epidemiology. The number of people with antibodies to a virus is always larger than the number of people who report infections. People do not report no symptoms from an infection. People usually do not report mild symptoms from an infection. Reporting systems need resources and understanding, especially when they initially set up for an epidemic. As the article states, many countries underreported cases for that reason.
There may be additional reasons for underreporting in a country such as China such as distrust of the government, officials wanting to underplay their statistics, and pressure from the the government.

Searching this 50 page thread for Sept 2019 does not give any sources for speculations about cases in September 2019. Please link to them.
There some posts about a February 2021 preprint that is still not published. The public database of samples and viral sequences of the Wuhan Institute of Virology went offline on 12th September 2019. They cite why the database was placed offline. There was a hacking attack. Nothing was unavailable because the sequences are published and in the US-run GenBank database.

There is mention of Andersen's biological clock model showing a time to the most recent common ancestor in September 2019. A post picking a single strict clock model result from Table 8.
WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part page 80.

Quote:

Different approaches have been used to analyse the SARS-CoV-2 genomes accumulated at different time points as the pandemic developed (Table 8), and the results suggest that the time to most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) inferred by more than 10 groups using different approaches is similar: between mid-November and mid-December 2019.(19, 31-42)

The tMRCA and mutation rate were estimated with the genomic sequences of 66 early cases (from Wuhan, before 31 January 2020). The inferred date of the tMRCA was 11 December 2019, with the 95% confidence interval ranging from 13 November 2019 to 23 December 2019, and the mutation rate was estimated to be 6.54 × 10-4 per site per year, with the confidence interval (3.32 × 10-4 – 9.54 × 10-4) (Table 9). The team also inferred the tMRCA with fixed mutation rate values (from previous studies), listed in Table 9. Overall, all these values are consistent with existing results, indicating a recent common ancestor of these viral genomic sequences.
Table 8. Time to the most common ancestor (tMRCA) inferred in different studies. ...

Strict clock model entries:

Bai et al. (31)	late September
Lu et al. (40)	2019.12.1
Duchene et al. (33)	2019.11.19
Volz et al. (42)	2019.12.8
Gómez-Carballa et al. (35)	2019.11.7

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

I don't know what you are referring to when you say that some different analyses "tried" to place the sources as being distant from Wuhan.

I'd have to go hunt for them. Essentially one source thought the genetic trail found the A lineage was dominant in SE Asia and I believe he suggested that is where it originated. I don't recall the specifics of the other but I believe it was similar. Nothing supports that so there is probably no reason to hunt the links down.

Quote:

From what I can gather, basically everyone agrees it began in Wuhan (unless you can find some sources other than those that say, for example, it began in Italy or Fort Detrick, which nobody seriously believes).

That's because you never read my posts or sources.

I think it was worthwhile to look at both of those potential origins, I don't think they've been supported. But I've been trying to find out what we know about the early Italian, French and US cases. I believe the US CDC has some information about the earlier cases (7 cases/5 states) but they've not published it. I hope we will at least see some antibody testing on those participants in the military games with the 90day Biden investigation but one would think we'd have heard something by now.

Quote:

The only thing that has been suggested is that it may have come to Wuhan through the wildlife trade. If that is the case, then maybe some people who raised the wildlife might have some kind of antibodies against SARS-CoV2 if they had been in prolonged contact with infected animals. But that is speculation.

Again, no spot fires, no proximal source species.

There were a small percentage of people in Yunnan with antibodies. But nothing has come of looking for a proximal source in Yunnan or elsewhere.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

[snip]

Nothing I see here worth responding to. Unless you stop personally calling me out, I won't be replying.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

That's because you never read my posts or sources.
.

Not true. I read some of them. I avoid the bull **** ones so I probably read about 10% of your sources.

I don’t click on Daily Caller, American Thinker, various other far-right documents etc…

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Second, this is like the stupid conclusion that Jon Stewart came up with "The pandemic was caused by science.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

I don't recall Stewart said that.

Just for Skeptic Ginger, I have linked to the point that Stewart says:

"science has eased the suffering of a pandemic that was most likely caused by science".

https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8?t=179

[Samson]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Stupid conclusion is stupid.

First of all, we are talking about speculation.

Second, this is like the stupid conclusion that Jon Stewart came up with "The pandemic was caused by science.

Even if (and this is a big if), it came from a lab worker being bitten in the field by a bat, we are still talking about bats in the in the wild. In which case, they could also be biting miners, or farm workers, or urinating in someone's juice etc...

No lab no pandemic is a substantial consideration, indeed pivotal since this pandemic has wrecked the world.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Samson

No lab no pandemic is a substantial consideration, indeed pivotal since this pandemic has wrecked the world.

You have yet to prove Labdidit!

[Samson]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

You have yet to prove Labdidit!

Different subject beyond my paygrade.

[Dr.Sid]

This seems to be the new part IMHO (from https://www.newsweek.com/wuhan-lab-w...ficial-1618686)

Quote:

Embarek said he had been told by management there that the lab had changed premises in early December 2019—around the time COVID was first detected. He said it would be "interesting to look at that period and this laboratory" at some point.

In some other article they claimed it happened on December 2nd. One Czech article also claimed that the original location was right next to the wet market. I wasn't able to find that claim in any article in English though ..

Edit:
It seems to be from this Danish interview .. and it's the new location which is closer to the market ..

https://translate.google.com/transla...-foerste-siger

[carlitos]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Not true. I read some of them. I avoid the bull **** ones so I probably read about 10% of your sources.

I don’t click on Daily Caller, American Thinker, various other far-right documents etc…

The Fort Detrick CT came from the deep swamp -- Russian disinformation sites, Alex Jones and Q people. I can probably post where that CT evolved from better than we can trace this actual virus. But it's probably off topic in this forum.

[Skeptic Ginger]

If there was a connection to the Wuhan military games spreading the virus it would put the initial cases in Wuhan into Sept and Oct of 2019. That would be considering incubation periods and numbers of cases that would have been needed in Wuhan to infect a significant number of foreigners who subsequently brought the infection home with them. IOW in order to infect more than just a handful of people there would have had to have been more than a handful of cases circulating in Wuhan.

One other possibility however, is if only a few cases in Wuhan infected only a few people attending the games but those people spread it among themselves before returning home. Either way it pushes the first cases in Wuhan back into Sept or Oct.

NIH: The impact of the World Military Games on the COVID-19 pandemic

Quote:

The World Military Games took place from the 18th to 27th of October 2019 in Wuhan, China. Over 140 nations with 9308 athletes participated with over 300,000 attendees, volunteers and staff [1–4]. This study examined the hypothesis that the large gathering in a pandemic epicentre was a factor in the spread of COVID-19 disease.

The data on the number of athletes and the number of COVID-19 cases per country were extracted from internet sources [1–4] and were examined from a European perspective. Figure ​Figure11 displays the graphical plot of the number of athletes per country against the number of cases of COVID-19 in that country. Note the strong correlation between these variables indicated by the curve fit and regression analysis....

There is a correlation between the number of individuals who travelled to the event and the number of COVID-19 cases in the country to which they returned. Whether this explains the rapid spread of the pandemic or not is not known definitively. However, this study shows a mathematical model to predict the number of COVID-19 cases in a country as a result of each infected individual travelling to that country.

I have not yet seen if anyone (IOW any specific country) has done antibody testing on people who attended the games and reported an illness compared with controls. I'm still hoping that might be in the report Biden commissioned.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

If there was a connection to the Wuhan military games spreading the virus it would put the initial cases in Wuhan into Sept and Oct of 2019. That would be considering incubation periods and numbers of cases that would have been needed in Wuhan to infect a significant number of foreigners who subsequently brought the infection home with them. IOW in order to infect more than just a handful of people there would have had to have been more than a handful of cases circulating in Wuhan.

One other possibility however, is if only a few cases in Wuhan infected only a few people attending the games but those people spread it among themselves before returning home. Either way it pushes the first cases in Wuhan back into Sept or Oct.

NIH: The impact of the World Military Games on the COVID-19 pandemic


I have not yet seen if anyone (IOW any specific country) has done antibody testing on people who attended the games and reported an illness compared with controls. I'm still hoping that might be in the report Biden commissioned.

Okay, here is the thing, the attendees of the Wuhan Military Games were in the military, were they not? If they were, not only would it be trivially easy to find out who they are, the governments of those countries could surely order serological tests on them. Why have they not done this and if they have why have we not had any bombshell announcements that people in, say, the US Army and the Italian Army had had Covid in October 2019?

Also, I would think if the NIH was reporting this, then it would make it even more likely to be something the US government should have done. Weirdly though, when I clicked your link, SG, it went to a paper by the Irish Journal of Medicine. Not the NIH. Why the discrepancy?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Okay, here is the thing, the attendees of the Wuhan Military Games were in the military, were they not? If they were, not only would it be trivially easy to find out who they are, the governments of those countries could surely order serological tests on them. Why have they not done this and if they have why have we not had any bombshell announcements that people in, say, the US Army and the Italian Army had had Covid in October 2019?

Also, I would think if the NIH was reporting this, then it would make it even more likely to be something the US government should have done. Weirdly though, when I clicked your link, SG, it went to a paper by the Irish Journal of Medicine. Not the NIH. Why the discrepancy?

Did you look at the address in the link? ...ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...

The NIH shares any number of papers from different journals. This was a European study, the researchers didn't look at the US numbers.

As for knowing who went, of course it is a matter of record who went. And if someone had the resources and access then those people who attended could be tested for antibodies. I suspect those tests are or have been done. Various persons are probably sitting on the information. That's why I've said a couple times now that I hope the US Intelligence investigation is looking at that and will share that information.

There is another data set not yet made public. The blood tests done in Italy have been repeated by Norway I believe at the request of the Italians. Those results have not been made public.

And in the US the CDC (or the NIH) has identified 7 people from 5 states that look to have had blood tests indicating they were the earliest COVID cases here. I know, because that is what the CDC does, that they almost certainly have interviewed those 7 people to try to find the common denominator be it contact with anyone that went to the military games or some other source. But that data has not been shared publicly yet either. The only thing they have released is that the 7 are all from ethnic minorities. Not very useful information in isolation.

There is a lot of data not yet made public. In some cases, in the US public health departments at least, a lot of evidence is collected before reports are officially written up and published.

The public health agencies here hold a lot of information back. For example, when there are cases of hepatitis A associated with a restaurant they will not make that information public unless there is a belief the public may have been exposed.

The same is true for products like vaccines. Public health will not disclose issues with a vaccine unless there is enough data to draw a conclusion the vaccine was connected. One has to show the product possibly harmed a person before public health here will make such information officially known.

So there are a lot of people in more than one country holding information back.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Did you look at the address in the link? ...ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...

The NIH shares any number of papers from different journals. This was a European study, the researchers didn't look at the US numbers.

By saying "NIH" it gives the mistaken impression that the National Institute of Health are making the claims. That is not the case.

It would be best not to:

1.) Create confusion.

2.) Burnish the claims with an authority that they do not have.

[angrysoba]

As for the claims themselves, that the Wuhan Military Games was a superspreader event, I am again going with the evidence of the dog that didn't bark.

In previous discussions of the lack of evidence, such as the lack of evidence of sick workers in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or the lack of evidence of the virus being in the lab, or the lack of evidence of a city-wide lockdown the usual answer is "It's China! What do you expect? Huh? Do you really think China is a free country and open about its evil ways? The lack of evidence of a lab leak is just evidence of a cover-up etc..."

However, now we have the problem of how it is that hundreds of athletes were supposedly coming back from the Wuhan Military Games with Covid infections, and yet almost two years later governments have not said anything about these infections. Why would they do this? To protect China? That makes no sense to me at all.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

By saying "NIH" it gives the mistaken impression that the National Institute of Health are making the claims. That is not the case.

It would be best not to:

1.) Create confusion.

2.) Burnish the claims with an authority that they do not have.

If you were more familiar with Pub Med and NIH citations you might not have this problem.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

As for the claims themselves, that the Wuhan Military Games was a superspreader event, I am again going with the evidence of the dog that didn't bark.

In previous discussions of the lack of evidence, such as the lack of evidence of sick workers in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or the lack of evidence of the virus being in the lab, or the lack of evidence of a city-wide lockdown the usual answer is "It's China! What do you expect? Huh? Do you really think China is a free country and open about its evil ways? The lack of evidence of a lab leak is just evidence of a cover-up etc..."

However, now we have the problem of how it is that hundreds of athletes were supposedly coming back from the Wuhan Military Games with Covid infections, and yet almost two years later governments have not said anything about these infections. Why would they do this? To protect China? That makes no sense to me at all.

I post published statistical evidence and you hand wave it off. The fact no one has published what you personally would like them to doesn't mean no one has collected the evidence. Why do any agencies owe you an explanation if one exists?

The point is your argument from incredulity is a fail.


BTW, it doesn't seem to bother you that Garry made assertions not supported by the evidence. Or does that bother you? You haven't addressed my question asking for the supporting evidence Garry claims is in the WHO report.

Let me specifically address it again because there is a comment in this piece that reflects my concern about overstating the evidence.

RF Garry: Early appearance of two distinct genomic lineages of SARS-CoV-2 in different Wuhan wildlife markets suggests SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin

Quote:

The study of SARS-CoV-2 origins conducted by the WHO team provided important new data regarding the role of wildlife markets in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.

Except that is not the case.

Here's the claim again:

Quote:

The WHO report documented that early cases were not only linked to the Huanan market, but that other early cases were linked to different markets that sold wildlife or wildlife products. Among the first 168 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan with onset date prior to December 31, 2019 and a known history of exposure to wildlife markets 55.4% (93/168) reported such exposures. Of the 168 cases, 28% (47/168) had only been to the Huanan market, 22% (38/168) had exposure to another wildlife market and 4.7% (8/168) had exposure to the Huanan market and another market (Annex E2, Table 1 of WHO, 2021). ...

Early lineage A viruses include SARS-Cov-2 isolate EPI_ISL_529213 sampled on 30Dec19 from a person linked to a wildlife market different than the Huanan market (Molecular Epidemiology Table 7, sample 13 in WHO, 2021).

This is only true if one reads between the evidence lines and fills it in with confirmation bias.

It boggles my mind that this expert (and I don't doubt his credentials) believes he sees this in the data:

Quote:

A dispassionate science-based discourse on the topic of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 must account for this new data revealed by the WHO study showing: 1. multiple markets were linked to the early cases, and 2. divergence of SARS-CoV-2into lineages A and B was an early occurrence.

No such additional wet markets have been identified and not all the early cases in lineage A even have a connection to a different market, let alone an identified other market.

Here is the comment that reflects what I have been saying:

Quote:

I was wondering if you could expand upon your reasoning for a few of the following statements, as I find the statements to be potentially problematic, or I do not understand how the conclusion was reached.

#1) [snipped you can see it in the link.]

It would seem the two lineages could have diverged in the lab or in the human population once it jumped.

The important part of the comment:

Quote:

#2) “Lab Leak scenarios must also account for the fact that the majority of early cases were associated with different wildlife markets in Wuhan.”
While not false, I think there isn’t much to account for, and this statement may reflect “target fixation”. While many cases did have links to markets, we could also probably find links between early cases and using cell phones, with 100% of the cases having a link with eating food. These links don’t need to be accounted for. The markets were good places for a virus to spread, and people, infected or not, visit those markets.

#3) “The multi-market aspect of the early outbreak can be explained by distribution of SARS-CoV-2 infected animals to more than one market”
This seems unlikely to me, as it implies multiple independent animal-human outbreaks, from multiple infected animals, when we have yet to detect evidence of any animal infected with early SARS-CoV-2. This explanation requires multiple near simultaneous sources of infection, or a single source that went to multiple markets, only in Wuhan, but the infection was missed by the search for infected animals of farms in the Hubei province. If the source came from outside of Hugbei, it seems unlikely that multiple markets in Wuhan received infected animals, but no other cities did.

Overall, my take away from the presence of links to multiple markets, not just the main seafood market neither suggests that the virus did or did not have a natural origin. It suggests that there was cryptic spread in humans in Wuhan, that was noticed after super-spreading at markets.

As noted with the main Wuhan seafood market where lineage B spread, it was probably just an early super-spreader event. What evidence is there that the cases associated with other markets were anything but similar h2h spreader events, as it is established that these markets are an effective place for h2h transmission?

It seems that we have no reason to think that the cases linked to other markets are any different. It seems unlikely that there would be multiple near simultaneous animal-human spillovers at different markets unless they all came from the same source.
However, a single source it seems like it should be easy to identify by cross-referencing a list of market suppliers, and identifying what supplier the markets had in common. In such case, the identification of a suplier with apparently a rampant infection within the animals should also be linked with earlier cases at the source, outside of Wuhan.

In my view, I haven’t seen anything in the association between early confirmed cases and the markets that suggests anything about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, other than that the time of the origin had to be prior to December 2.

The comment doesn't even emphasize the most troubling aspect of Garry's assertion, that is the assertion the WHO found a connection to some other market for cases in lineage A. Since no one here seems to have addressed this I was pleased to see at least someone did in the comments to Garry's paper.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

I post published statistical evidence and you hand wave it off. The fact no one has published what you personally would like them to doesn't mean no one has collected the evidence. Why do any agencies owe you an explanation if one exists?

What evidence?

Were they sick with Covid or not? This can be easily verified, surely.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

What evidence?

Were they sick with Covid or not? This can be easily verified, surely.

It would help if you actually read the paper.

Quote:

COVID-19 cases per country were extracted from internet sources [1–4] and were examined from a European perspective. Figure ​Figure11 displays the graphical plot of the number of athletes per country against the number of cases of COVID-19 in that country. Note the strong correlation between these variables indicated by the curve fit and regression analysis.

It's a statistical analysis of the relation between the number of documented COVID infections and the number of people in that population which had been to Wuhan.


Whether or not the researchers looked at a more direct measure, testing the people who went to the games, we don't know. There are many reasons they might not have had the resources and/or access to testing the people who attended the Wuhan games.

There's a correlation between diagnosed cases and the number of people in that population who had attended the games. This is an epidemiology study.


If you are interested in getting up to speed here: Chapter 12 Methods for Correlational Studies

Here's a shorter version.

Quote:

Even if there is a causal relationship between variables, it can be difficult to tell the direction of the relationship – which variable causes the other to change? For example, there might be a correlation between people’s mood and their physical health, but it is not obvious which variable influences the other – do good moods improve physical health, or does good physical health improve people’s moods?

Some types of research can give us evidence of causal relationships between two things, while other types can only help us to find correlations. For example, randomised controlled trials can provide good evidence of causal relationships, while cross-sectional studies such as a one-off surveys cannot.

When reading health research, it is important to remember the difference between correlation and causation, and question which, if either, of these the research is evidence of.

When doing this kind of research one's resources can sometimes mean you can't do as much as one could were resources unlimited. It doesn't mean the evidence collected and analyzed are useless as you seem to believe.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

It would help if you actually read the paper.

I read the "paper" and it is a back of the envelope calculation in which they say there is a correlation between numbers of athletes in a country and numbers of cases.

To be honest, I don't find it very compelling. It is actually a letter to the editor, not even a proper paper with abstract, methodology etc...

I think perhaps you should read that link you sent me so that you can understand how a proper study should be conducted.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

It's a statistical analysis of the relation between the number of documented COVID infections and the number of people in that population which had been to Wuhan.

It's not. You should read the paper you sent. It's number of athletes actually, not "number of people in that population which had been to Wuhan".

See, this kind of thing is why I find it so hard to take your claims at face value. It seems I have to peel away layers of obfuscation first.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Whether or not the researchers looked at a more direct measure,

Researchers???? It is written by a single author, Amy Elise Winter. Who is she? She appears to be a writer of a book called The Equation of Time.

https://twitter.com/AmyEliseWinter

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

That's because you never read my posts or sources.

I honestly have to wonder if you read your posts or sources.

And I have to wonder which is more embarrassing, that you post them without reading, or you read them and still post them.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Puppycow

I was recently alerted to this very good piece, which I found well worth the time it took to read:

Origin of Covid — Following the Clues

I'll refrain from quoting excerpts, unless requested, because I think it is best read from beginning to end. It is somewhat lengthy as it discusses many details, but it is definitely readable.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

That's an excellent summary of the scientific community's evolution of thinking here from early 2020 to now.

For those of you who were pushing the article by Nicholas Wade, it might be worth checking out this video by Potholer54 in which he shows how much of Wade's article was a misrepresentation of Andersen et.al and coronavirus science in general, and in fact his insinuations about virology in general.

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[W.D.Clinger]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

If there was a connection to the Wuhan military games spreading the virus it would put the initial cases in Wuhan into Sept and Oct of 2019. ...snip...

NIH: The impact of the World Military Games on the COVID-19 pandemic

Quote:

The World Military Games took place from the 18th to 27th of October 2019 in Wuhan, China. Over 140 nations with 9308 athletes participated with over 300,000 attendees, volunteers and staff [1–4]. This study examined the hypothesis that the large gathering in a pandemic epicentre was a factor in the spread of COVID-19 disease.

The data on the number of athletes and the number of COVID-19 cases per country were extracted from internet sources [1–4] and were examined from a European perspective. Figure ​Figure11 displays the graphical plot of the number of athletes per country against the number of cases of COVID-19 in that country. Note the strong correlation between these variables indicated by the curve fit and regression analysis....

There is a correlation between the number of individuals who travelled to the event and the number of COVID-19 cases in the country to which they returned. Whether this explains the rapid spread of the pandemic or not is not known definitively. However, this study shows a mathematical model to predict the number of COVID-19 cases in a country as a result of each infected individual travelling to that country.

Skeptic Ginger is responsible for the bold face in that text. In the original text, that sentence was not in bold face.

People who have experience with statistics or the interpretation of scientific data will look at that bold-faced sentence and say "So what?"

There is probably a strong correlation between the population of a country and the number of individuals from that country who travelled to this event. There is known to be a strong correlation between the population of a European country and the number of COVID-19 cases in that country. Those two correlations imply a correlation between the number of individuals who travelled to the event and the number of COVID-19 cases in the country to which they returned.

I could not believe that such a sentence would have gotten through peer review. As discussed below, it didn't.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

It would help if you actually read the paper.

I read the "paper".

It's actually a letter to the editor of a medical journal.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

It's a statistical analysis of the relation between the number of documented COVID infections and the number of people in that population which had been to Wuhan.

It's an utterly clueless statistical analysis of that relation.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

There's a correlation between diagnosed cases and the number of people in that population who had attended the games. This is an epidemiology study.

It's a worthless observation. If worthless observations qualify as an "epidemiology study", then I guess it's an "epidemiology study".

Originally Posted by angrysoba

I read the "paper" and it is a back of the envelope calculation in which they say there is a correlation between numbers of athletes in a country and numbers of cases.

To be honest, I don't find it very compelling. It is actually a letter to the editor, not even a proper paper with abstract, methodology etc...

...snip...

Researchers???? It is written by a single author, Amy Elise Winter. Who is she? She appears to be a writer of a book called The Equation of Time.

Which is a book of poetry. According to her publisher:

Quote:

Amy Elise has been writing for two years. She has written a novel, several short stories and over 100 poems. This is her first published work.

Originally Posted by angrysoba

I honestly have to wonder if you read your posts or sources.

And I have to wonder which is more embarrassing, that you post them without reading, or you read them and still post them.

Many people accept any source that appears to confirm what they want to believe. A select few vigorously defend the authority of their sources, no matter how ridiculous the source.

[Belz...]

I'll leave this here.

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjafLCvejQA

[Skeptic Ginger]

Oh my my, hit a nerve did I, angrysoba?

Tell me, was it the link to remedial review of correlation studies or the fact you can't incorporate anything short of absolute proof into your definition of evidence without having a meltdown? It certainly seems to annoy you when any evidence surfaces of the pandemic starting before the Chinese took down evidence in mid-Sept.


But of course it is perfectly acceptable there has yet to be found a source animal of a natural spillover after almost 2 years now. And no one here seems bothered that Garry exaggerated evidence that supported an assertion he made.

It must be annoying when I post so much evidence of a lab origin that is less than absolute proof.

Got no evidence of the spillover? No worries, it's always easy to try to make it look like SG is posting questionable evidence. OMG she bolded something in the piece!

You could have just said that study has limitations. Of course it does. As I pointed out, a lot of research is done with limited resources. That doesn't make the research invalid. Generally pilot studies support investing more resources to do more definitive research.

The fact you don't understand when and why correlations do imply causation doesn't surprise me. A lot of people on this forum don't understand that or that systematically collected anecdotes with controls is indeed evidence and used quite often in medical research.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Oh my my, hit a nerve did I, angrysoba?

Tell me, was it the link to remedial review of correlation studies or the fact you can't incorporate anything short of absolute proof into your definition of evidence without having a meltdown? It certainly seems to annoy you when any evidence surfaces of the pandemic starting before the Chinese took down evidence in mid-Sept.

Speaking of that link, I read through it. Very interesting. Did you read it? Of course you didn't. It was just you being patronizing. It's funny how much you complain about others apparently attacking you when you have no scruples whatsoever about attacking others.

Anyway, let's look at what it says...

Quote:

There are three basic types of correlational studies that are used in eHealth evaluation: cohort, cross-sectional, and case-control studies

eHealth evaluation? Hmmm.... is that relevant here?

Anyway, which of the three types of studies are we talking about with the "paper" you posted?

Quote:

Cohort studies – A sample of subjects is observed over time where those exposed and not exposed to the eHealth system are compared for differences in one or more predefined outcomes, such as adverse event rates.

I don't see any use of exposed and not exposed. We don't have any controls, for example, countries that sent no athletes. In fact, looking at the chart, I cannot do anything with the data at all, because I don't even know which countries are being compared or plotted on the graph.

You cannot do anything with the data either. For example, could you tell me which countries are 1, 2 or 3 on this chart? (see picture)

Or maybe it was:

Quote:

Cross-sectional studies – These are considered a type of cohort study where only one comparison is made between exposed and unexposed subjects. They provide a snapshot of the outcome and the associated characteristics of the cohort at a specific point in time.

Nope. Again, we have the same problem. No comparison with non-exposed. In fact, we have no way of knowing what the rates were in countries that sent no athletes.

Quote:

Case-control studies – Subjects in a sample that are exposed to the eHealth system are matched with those not exposed but otherwise similar in composition, then compared for differences in some predefined outcomes.

Doesn't look like that either.

Now look, this is exactly what people have problems with in a Gish Gallop. Just any old crap is thrown out there with a "ha ha! You have no answer to this!" when it is time-consuming and boring to have to point out your many, many errors with very, very basic stuff.

Think about it! What do you really honestly believe is demonstrated by this letter to the editor from someone with apparently no credentials at all?

For example:

1.) How was the methodology arrived at? What was significant about the chosen dates?

2.) Look at the "References":

Quote:

1. Prospect.org, visited on the 20th of October 2020
2. Insidethegames.biz, visited on the 20th of October 2020
3. Milsport.one, visited on the 20th of October 2020
4. Worldometers.info, visited on the 20th of October 2020

She went on the internet on 20th October and apparently took the information from that, and yet no particular article is mentioned on, for example, Insidethegames.biz which is just a compendium of articles on various types of sports. This would not inspire anyone with confidence.

The "study" is absolute nonsense and your touting it as evidence for your theory is beyond silly.

I have some other points I will make about it, but first I want you to try answering my questions, then we can see just how much nonsense it really is.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Belz...

I'll leave this here.

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjafLCvejQA

Yep, posted above!

[steenkh]

The following is from an interview given by Peter Embarek, who led the WHO team in Wuhan in 2021. He reveals some of the political issues that the team had to face when preparing the final report.

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/udland/2021-0...-foerste-siger

The text is in Danish, and I have translated it below.

Quote:

Despite WHO’s conclusion that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely”, chief researcher now says that patient zero could have been a lab employee

The first outbreak of corona virus in China in the autumn of 2019 could have started with an employee in one of the labs in the city who has been infected by a bat during field work or in one of the labs in Wuhan. An employee who was infected in the field while taking samples belongs to one of the likely hypotheses.

This is the evaluation by Peter Embryo who was leader of the team of experts that the World Health Organisation (WHO) sent to China in the spring of 2021 in order to investigate the origin of the disease.

In fact, he now says to TV 2 that it belongs to one of the probable theories that a person with connection to a lab was one of the first infected.

From extremely unlikely to likely

The experts from WHO issued a report after the journey to China where the theory that the corona infection started with a leak from a lab in Wuhan was described as “extremely unlikely”.

On the other hand it was “likely” according to the experts that the pandemic started by a bat infecting a human. And now Peter Embarek says that the infection could have started by collection of – or work with – bats in connection with the research that was taking place in Wuhan. That is, that an infected lab worker is a likely scenario despite the wording of the report.

An employee who was infected in the field while taking samples belongs to the likely hypotheses. This is where the virus jumps directly from bat to human. In that case it would be a lab worker instead of a random villager, or another person who has regular contact to bats. So that is actually in the likely category, says Peter Embarek to TV 2.

He emphasises that the experts of WHO did not find any direct evidence that the outbreak of corona virus was connected to the research in bats that was conducted in the labs in Wuhan. But the experts did note several issues that should be investigated more closely, according to Peter Embarek.

A difficult cooperation with China

The bats are central to the investigation of the origin of the disease, and the closest known relative to the virus that causes the pandemic lives in bats of the family of horseshoe bats.

There are none of the family of horseshoe bats living in the wild in the Wuhan area, and the only people who are known with certainty who have been close to horseshoe bats are employees at the labs in the city.

Nevertheless it was difficult for the expert team from WHO to even discuss the lab theory with the Chinese.

48 hours before we were finished with the entire mission, we still did not have an agreement that we could discuss the lab part in the report, so we debated until the last moment whether it should be included or not, says Peter Embarek.

The experts did succeed in visiting two labs in Wuhan. Both labs work with – or have worked with – bats, and here the Chinese authorities collected a group of employees who could answer questions.

We could not look at lab books or documents directly from the lab. We got a presentation, and then we talked about it, and asked the questions we wanted to ask, but we saw no documentation whatsoever, says Peter Embarek.

The other lab in Wuhan

Although the top-secured lab at the Wuhan Institute for Virology has garnered most attention, there is, according to the leader of the WHO team of experts, also reason to take a look at the other, which is run by the Chinese Health authorities (CDC).

Their last publication on the work with bats was from 2013, but that does not mean that they haven’t worked with bats since. As far as we understand, they work mostly with parasites, and not so much with virus, so they have worked with parasites from bats, says Peter Embarek.

During the visit he made a remarkable observation.

I ask the management: “How old is the lab?”, and they say “Why this is from December 2019. At that time, December 2, 2019, we moved to new laboratories”, says Peter Embarek.

The new facilities of the CDC is only 500 meter from the market that was the epicentre of the pandemic in the first weeks in December 2019.

It is interesting that the lab moved on December 2, 2019. This is the period when it all began, and it is known that at a lab, it disturbs everything, says Peter Embarek. He adds that it is necessary to gather more knowledge about what happened, if you want to know more about what role the CDC lab might have had.

You also have to move the viral collection, the sample collection, and other collections from one place to the other. This entire procedure is a disturbing element in the daily working of a laboratory, so that is why it at one point also will be interesting to look at this period, and this lab, says Peter Embarek.

The four possibilities

He explains that the visit of WHO was of a scientific nature, and not an actual investigation. For that reason most was dependent on the goodwill of the Chinese hosts.

When the final report had to be written there was also an intensive negotiation about what would be in it.

At start they did not want to have anything about the lab included, because it was impossible, and for that reason one should not waste any more time on that. We insisted that it should be included because it was part of the entire question about the origin of the virus, says Peter Embarek.

He reduced the possible scenarios for how the pandemic began to four possibilities.
Either a bat had infected a human directly.
Or a human was infected by a product that was infected with bat virus.
Or a bat had infected another animal that then in turn had infected a human.
Or it has begun at one of Wuhan’s laboratories.
“Extremely unlikely” was a compromise

The possibility that a lab was involved was very difficult to accept for Peter Embarek’s Chinese counterpart.
I said: “Listen, we need to include this, or we have no report. It will not be approved, or accepted as a reasonable, credible report”, and he could understand that, but he also told me that for them the discussion about a lab is difficult to accept, says Peter Embarek.
In the end he succeeded if the lab theory was categorised as “extremely unlikely”.

Peter Embarek himself tended to think that the theory was “unlikely”, but he accepted a compromise.

There were other things that I wanted settled before we were finished. So it was a conscious choice, he says.

He has himself thought about why the lab theory encountered so much resistance.

It is probably because it means that there is a human error behind such an event, and they are not happy about admitting that. There is this traditional Asian feeling of not wanting to lose face, and the system focuses very much on infallibility, and that everything needs to be perfect. And maybe someone wants to hide something. Who knows? says Peter Embarek.

The important details

When the report of the expert team was published, all four possibilities were included, but although the lab theory was described as “extremely unlikely”, Peter Embarek now says that one should not look so narrowly on the definitions of the expert team.

You need to be careful not to divide, and separate those four hypotheses from each other because they are very closely linked, and you can have scenarios where you go from one hypothesis to another, he says, and gives an example.

The lab leak hypothesis actually covers several scenarios. One of them is that a lab worker is infected in the field while he or she is collecting samples in a bat cave. Even though it belongs under lab leak, it also belongs under the first hypothesis that we have, i.e. direct transfer from bat to human, and we have regarded that hypothesis as a likely hypothesis, says Peter Embarek.

A different kind of investigation

If the theory that the corona virus perhaps escaped from a lab, or came to Wuhan with a lab worker is to be investigated more closely, it will demand an entirely different level of cooperation on the Chinese part.

Then it will no longer be about scientific studies, but more like the kind of audits, where you will execute an almost police-like investigation, and will check everything that there in a lab like that, he says.

You would have to check security books, laboratory books, research plans, and biological collections. You will go through it all, and interview every employee separately. So it is an entirely different work than a scientific investigation, says Peter Embarek.

One of the researchers who is backing up about another investigation of the conditions in China is the Danish evolutionary biologist, and professor at
UC Berkeley in California, Rasmus Nielsen.

I have previously argued relatively vocally that it was not a lab leak. It was just not very likely, Rasmus Nielsen says to TV 2.
However, he is no longer quite as dismissive. For instance, in the beginning of June he wrote on Twitter that he would like to have it cleared up if there really was a lab leak.

He wants clarity because the Chinese authorities have suddenly started strict control of research in the origin of the disease in China.

When I think after all that we should investigate the hypothesis about a lab leak, there are several reasons. One of them is the way the Chinese government has reacted. They have tried to repress all research in this area. We can’t know if it is only because they want to control the narrative, or if it is because they have something to hide, he says. For the time being, the Chinese authorities have only taken a stand about the lab leak theory in one place, and that is in the report from the WHO. And even if the Chinese are extremely rejecting, chief negotiator Peter Embarek thinks it was a victory to even let them consider it.

These are only four pages on the report, but they are very special pages. Four golden pages we have here, I would say. This is the only place where this is discussed from the Chinese side, he says. After the visit of the WHO on Wuhan, China has only related themselves to this question in dismissive terms.

On the 16th of July 2021, the WHO issued a plan for further studies in China. Here the organisation proposes among other things to carry out an audit which will be like a thorough police investigation of relevant labs in Wuhan.

But Zeng Yixin, the deputy health minister of China, completely rejected a new visit.

When I first saw the second phase of the investigation of the origin of the corona virus, I was honestly very surprised, said Zeng Yixin.

In this plan the hypothesis that China has broken the lab procedures and caused a lab leak is to be prioritised. In that regard, I think the plan disregards common sense, and is contrary to science, the representative of the government said .

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Nothing I see here worth responding to. Unless you stop personally calling me out, I won't be replying.

Digging yourself deeper into a pit of ignorance and misleading us is your choice. I will continue to document the pit getting deeper so that people know what you are doing.
13 August 2021: Cites a news report hyping well known epidemiology that the number of people with antibodies to a virus is always larger than the number of people who report infections.
13 August 2021: A so far "speculations about cases in September 2019" source in this thread fantasy
13 August 2021: Skeptic Ginger quote mines the earliest value from Table 8 of WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part
12 August 2021: Ignorance about the "Introduction through a laboratory incident" section in WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part.
11 August 2021: An outstanding "Cite where Metzl "addressed Daszak's unscientific dismissal of the lab leak hypothesis", Skeptic Ginger."? question.
11 August 2021: Cites an obviously dubious paper to people who read it.
11 August 2021: Skeptic Ginger persists with misunderstanding the Lancet open letter which rightfully condemned lab leak conspiracy theories, not the lab leak hypothesis.
11 August 2021: Skeptic Ginger repeats the error pf citing Jamie Metzl's biased blog (a non-biologist lying about no evidence for an animal origin)
11 August 2021: Previous "evidence" from Skeptic Ginger.

1. No science in a slightly paranoid US Right To Know article
2. Skeptic Ginger cites a Daily Mail tabloid article basically lying about Peter Daszak
3. A "it is a fact he was removed from the UN Commission" error from Skeptic Ginger
4. Skeptic Ginger cites a slightly idiotic "The World University Rankings" web page.
5. Skeptic Ginger cites a irrelevant, paranoid article.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

If there was a connection to the Wuhan military games spreading the virus it would put the initial cases in Wuhan into Sept and Oct of 2019. ...
NIH: The impact of the World Military Games on the COVID-19 pandemic

16 August 2021: Another slightly dubious paper cited by Skeptic Ginger.
If some of the 9308 athletes and over 300,000 spectators were infected at the Wuhan military games ending on 17 October 2021 then there would be outbreaks of COVID-19 in the countries they returned to in early November 2021. The monitoring that found the Wuhan outbreak would have found these outbreaks, e.g. news reports and hospital records of a new disease. There would be a month of further cases before the first known case in early December. We would have samples from those cases!
Minor aspects to the paper: There is a single author. The author seems to have published 4 papers in the last 30 years, the last in 2000. The other papers are cancer related. The author currently works at Mount Anville, Dublin, D14A8P3 Ireland (a secondary school) and was at the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the 1990's. Web sites as references.
Most importantly: The author makes a "correlation equals causation" error.

ETA: Add the issue of apparently only these athletes and spectators being infected as if they never interacted with other people in Wuhan.
The Epidemiological Characteristics of an Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) — China, 2020 has ~12 daily cases in Wuhan by the end of December 2019 rising from the single case on 8 December. If the outbreak started a month earlier then the month should have started with ~12 cases per day.

The title of the paper is "The impact of the World Military Games on the COVID-19 pandemic". The author is not affiliate with the NIH.