The coronavirus continues to stir up the wildest theories about its origin. While the pangolin is suspected of having played the role of intermediate host between the bat and humans, new theories continue to flourish on the internet.
On February 15, Botao Xiao, professor at the laboratory of synthetic medicine and biology at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, and Lei Xiao, from a university hospital in Wuhan, published a study on the ResearchGate portal, sort knowledge exchange network for scientists on the origin of the coronavirus. Their thesis? The virus may have escaped from two laboratories studying the transmission of viruses by bats, located near the seafood market in Wuhan, the epicenter of this epidemic which has already killed more than 2,000 people since January.
The first would be the Wuhan Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the second, the Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory, attached to the Wuhan Virology Institute. Its construction was completed in January 2015. It also retains high-risk pathogens.
Bitten by a bat
According to the two researchers, "the genomic sequence of affected patients is between 89% and 96% identical to the Bat Cov ZC45 coronavirus, which is found in the bat Rhinolophus affinis 1,2". However, the researchers exclude the hypothesis that bats of this type may have flown to Wuhan, or have been sold on the market. They are based on a study published in the scientific journal The Lancet which showed that, among the first 41 cases of coronavirus, 13 had no link with the Wuhan market.
Based on municipal reports and the testimonies of 59 people collected on the spot, the two researchers explain that "the probability that bats flew to the market is very low", adding that "the bat does not has never been a source of food for city dwellers or sold in the market. ”
Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao add that the bat Rhinolophus affinis does not live in Hubei province where Wuhan is located, but in Yunnan or Zhejiang, 900 km away. Which, according to them, would support their thesis that the seafood market is not the starting point of the epidemic.
Two Chinese scientists published a now deleted paper on ResearchGate that we were able to retrieve. It claims # COVID2019 / # nCoV2019 may have originated from accidental Wuhan Center of Disease Control and Prevention leakage due to high risk behavior and bad operational security. pic.twitter.com/H5lqiiChpm
- OSINT HK (@OSINTHK) February 15, 2020Researchers are blaming the Wuhan Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which they say has housed as many as 605 bats in recent years to study them. Quoting an article from the Changjiang Times, they report that one of the laboratory workers was "attacked by bats and that one of their blood spurted on his skin", requiring quarantine. In a second incident, "the man is said to have quarantined himself after having seen one of the bats urinating on him".
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Another clue for our two researchers: the proximity between the market and one of the laboratories. According to them, the Wuhan Center for Disease Prevention and Control is only 280 meters from the seafood market of which the epidemic is believed to have started. "It is plausible that the virus leaked in the surroundings and that it contaminated the first patients," they explain.
The two researchers conclude their study by recommending a "strengthening of security measures" in laboratories presenting a high biological danger and their relocation "far from city centers and densely populated areas".
Inconsistencies and shortcuts
The thesis defended by this scientific article contains many inconsistencies. First, its authors rule out the possibility of an intermediate host which may have transmitted COVID-19 to humans. However, other researchers have suggested that the snake or the pangolin fulfilled this role. According to a recent study, the genomes of this virus and those circulating in the pangolin are 96% identical.
On Twitter, journalist Alan Wong also points to an imprecision about the bats mentioned in the article. The latter are not only present in the regions of Yunnan or Zhejiang but "one of the most common species in south-east Asia".
Finally, the article contains an error of assessment concerning the laboratories. As can be seen on Google Maps, the Wuhan Center for Disease Prevention and Control is not located 280 meters from Wuhan Market, as noted, but 1.6 km away. Only one hospital is so close to the market.
As for the P4 laboratory, it is located in the Jiangxia district more than 40 kilometers from the seafood market in Huanan, as the Global Times specifies, and not 12 kilometers from the market, as claimed by our two researchers. In a statement posted on Twitter, the laboratory "denied that one of its graduates is the" zero patient "of the coronavirus", adding that the identity of the zero patient was still unknown.
Contacted by Sciences et Avenir, the director of the zoonoses department of the WHCDC indirectly implicated, Zhang Yong-Zhen, denounces "a false story told by very stupid people, without any professional knowledge". He adds that “the genomic sequences of bat viruses closest to the human coronavirus do not come from the laboratory of Wuhan, but from another site, in Nanjing in the province of Jiangsu […] In addition, our research on the bats in Wuhan were carried out 7 years ago. "
Conscious conspiracy theories
Given the concern over the coronavirus, and the many unknowns about the origin of the virus, conspiracy theories have been rampant in recent weeks.
As Science and Avenir recalls, the Twitter account of the Zero Hedge blog (670,000 subscribers), was definitively suspended after having relayed several eccentric theories on the origin of the coronavirus, notably involving a researcher from the P4 laboratory.
In the United States, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton recently suggested on Fox news that the Chinese authorities were concealing a leak of the virus from the P4 laboratory in Wuhan. Questioned by the Washington Post, Vipin Narang, an associate professor at MIT, replied that this assumption was "highly unlikely".
A few days after its publication, the scientific article was removed from the ResearchGate platform by its authors. Its removal has obviously helped fuel conspiracy theories about the origin of the coronavirus. But perhaps the two researchers have backed away from the critics. Screenshots remain available on the archives website.