LaoDan wrote:windwalker wrote:The main point, rule out the Lab, and what was being done there.
Haven't seen or read anything that would suggest anything else.
This WAS addressed way back in July [July 8, 2020] on page 103 of this thread. Your sources appear to be outdated, or are otherwise failing to account for the following study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1Most COVID-19 cases show mild influenza-like symptoms (14) and it has been suggested that some uncharacterized influenza cases may have masked COVID-19 cases in the 2019-2020 season (11). This possibility prompted us to analyze some archival WWTP samples from January 2018 to December 2019 (Figure 2). All samples came out to be negative for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genomes with the exception of March 12, 2019, in which both IP2 and IP4 target assays were positive. This striking finding indicates circulation of the virus in Barcelona long before the report of any COVID-19 case worldwide. Barcelona is a business and commerce hub, as well as a popular venue for massive events, gathering visitors from many parts of the world. It is nevertheless likely that similar situations may have occurred in several other parts of the world, with circulation of unnoticed COVID-19 cases in the community.
"Haven't seen or read anything that would suggest anything else."
The discovery is puzzling, given the characteristics of COVID-19 outbreaks. The highly contagious respiratory illness would have ravaged Barcelona several months before the Wuhan epidemic, but that did not happen.
One possible explanation for the result is the accidental contamination of the March 2019 samples during testing. Another is that the result is a false positive.
Researchers tested for three genes and found a positive result for one of them, the RdRp gene.
They screened for two regions of the gene, and both were detected on the 39th cycle of amplification during PCR testing. The higher the number of amplification, the less specific the result, Science Alert notes. Scientists use 40 to 45 rounds of amplification in their testing.
The March 2019 sample could have contained RNA or DNA that resembled the test target after the 39th cycle.
https://bgr.com/science/coronavirus-tes ... 019-study/
A curious thing about this finding is that it disagrees with epidemiological data about the virus. The authors don’t cite reports of a spike in the number of respiratory disease cases in the local population following the date of the sampling.
Until this process of peer review has been completed, though, the evidence needs to be treated with caution.
https://theconversation.com/was-coronav ... 019-141582