A SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) family virus, 18 dead and more than 600 infections, two cities in central China under quarantine and many unknown. The coronavirus baptized “2019-nCoV” has been at the center of all concerns since the appearance of the first cases in December in Wuhan.
And in the absence of elements formally determining its origin, as well as the conditions of its spread and the duration of its incubation period, this potentially fatal disease, which is transmitted by the respiratory tract, has become the source of multiple speculations and fake news . The Parisian sift them through.
The strain is said to have "escaped" from a laboratory located in Wuhan
Several Twitter users have been recalling for a few days that a laboratory studying dangerous strains of viruses was installed in the city of Wuhan in 2017. A coincidence that leaves more than one perplexed.
Berita tahun 2017. Di Wuhan ternyata terdapat lab biologi terlengkap di Tiongkok yang meneliti patogen-patogen paling berbahaya. Apakah ini kebetulan terkait recent event? https://t.co/xuEwo5Xncc
- Amir Karimuddin (@amirk) January 23, 2020Some even suggest, without providing any evidence, that the virus has "escaped" from this laboratory.
"Wuhan market animals are implicated in this epidemic, which I would have also believed if there had not been this accidental release of pathogen in the Wuhan virology laboratory last month" , understands a surfer who describes himself as an "amateur analyst of infectious diseases", without obviously substantiating his claims.
So the Wuhan outbreak is blaming marketplace animals for this virus ... which would be my guess ... if it wasn't for that accidental release of pathogen at the Wuhan virology lab last month.
Primary host: bat, or snake.
I doubt it. This virus jumped to humans too quickly.
Many accounts share an article published in the journal Nature in 2017 and entitled "Inside the Chinese laboratory responsible for studying the most dangerous pathogens in the world". According to its author, after studying a virus transmitted by ticks, Chinese researchers at this laboratory, which recently set up in the city, could then be interested in the viruses responsible for SARS and Ebola. It is not known if they have started their research to date on the two viruses.
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"Some scientists outside of China are worried about a leak of these pathogens", writes also Nature, who nevertheless recalls that the laboratory benefits from the security level "BSL-4" is the highest level of biological confinement in the country. It did not take much to wake up many followers of conspiracy theories, while we still do not know the starting point of the spread of the virus to humans.
"Disinfectant" Used in Shanghai
A video posted Tuesday by a Twitter user and viewed for nearly 300,000 times since, shows a city he presents as that of Shanghai, China, completely smoky.
#Wuhan virus #Shanghai # chernobyl. # Coronavirus
Gov't Spraying disinfector in the residential area, sounds like chernobyl pic.twitter.com/WkHgIXOapB
On one of the roads, a vehicle spreads intense white smoke, which gradually evaporates. “The government is spreading disinfectant in the residential area. Chernobyl tunes, ”writes the user, referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster, under the hashtag #Wuhanvirus.
Many comments immediately shouted at the "fake news", when the video could not be dated or located. Some media have also tried, in vain, to contact the distributor of these images, to find out more.
The Chinese authorities have disinfected certain areas, such as the Wuhan train station, reports the New York Times, but with much less material and not in the open air.
The virus seen in Cambodia and Taiwan
Wind of panic in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, after a user on Facebook assured that the virus had arrived in the city. The Minister of Health wanted to restore the truth by telling her citizens not to believe the information published only on social networks.
"People infected with this new respiratory disease have been admitted to hospitals in Taiwan and emergency measures have been implemented," said several people whose voice recordings have gone viral, reports Taiwan News. The country formally denies these multiple contaminations and invites its inhabitants to exercise caution regarding this type of information. To date, only one contamination, that of a woman in her fifties who arrived on January 20 from Wuhan, has been identified in the country.
Note that on the Asian island, it is better not to have fun spreading false information about this virus. According to the daily, any inhabitant who would risk it incurs a fine of 3 million Taiwanese dollars (90,000 euros).
A bat soup that causes the virus?
Many tweets, as well as media such as the British daily newspapers the Mirror and the Daily Star, suggest, using a shortcut, that bat soup, presented as a popular dish by the Chinese in Wuhan city, may have been causing the virus to spread. One of the newspapers even speaks of "potentially lethal soup".
Graphic ⚠️
#ChinaPneumonia - “Bat Soup” on 🇨🇳 diners' desk. # Wildlife animals hv ALWAYS been “delicacies” in #China, some even claim they can improve health & sex performance.
Let's NOT forget #Bats are reservoirs for <60 viruses. # Coronavirus # Wuhanpic.twitter.com / Eg7QEUxrsz
They are based on the intervention of Chinese scientists, published in the journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and quoted by the China Daily, who believe that bats could have served as a reservoir for the virus.
Difficult nevertheless to formally incriminate this soup, as repelling this dish as it may seem, since there is no evidence that the mammal transmitted the virus directly to humans. A Chinese woman living in Wuhan also refutes that this soup is a dish regularly consumed in the city.
The animal track is nevertheless at the center of research, attested last week Jean-Claude Manuguerra, head of the emergency biological intervention cell at the Pasteur Institute, at LCI. In 2002, the civet was found to be at the origin of the SARS epidemic and the markets of the city of Wuhan are full of animals from exotic species. But in addition to the bat, other animals are also suspected: on Wednesday, an article in the Journal of Medical Virology suggests that the snake could have acted as an intermediary with the human being.
