A researcher for Brazil's state-run Fiocruz Institute takes an oral swab sample from a bat captured in the Atlantic Forest, at Pedra Branca state park, near Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020. Teams of researchers around the globe are racing to study the places and species from which the next pandemic may emerge. It's no coincidence that many scientists are focusing attention on the world's only flying mammals, bats. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Chinese researchers say they have found a new batch of coronaviruses in bats that resemble covid-19, which spread like wildfire through the world and led to a deadly pandemic that has claimed a reported 3.84 million lives so far.
Researchers said they a sampled urine, feces and mouth swabs from small forest-dwelling bats living in the Yunnan Province between May 2019 and November 2020.
They discovered 24 novel coronavirus genomes from different bat species, including four SARS-CoV-2-like coronaviruses. One of the four may be the second-closest yet to the covid-19 virus.
There have been renewed calls to investigate the origin of covid-19. Some have suggested that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan China and have pointed fingers at Shi Zhengli, a top Chinese virologist who headed a research team that experimented on coronaviruses at a state lab in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic first emerged.
Many scientific researchers suspect the virus originated in a bat, though it is possible it passed through an intermediary animal before infecting humans. Others have noted that even if the virus leaked from a lab, it does not necessarily mean the virus was created in a lab and could have merely been studied there.
A joint study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and China reported that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from bats to humans most likely occurred through another animal.
The findings also state that it is “extremely unlikely” the pandemic virus occurred through a laboratory leak—a popular theory held among leaders outside of China at the beginning of the outbreak.
The idea that the virus may have escaped from a lab has long been widely dismissed by scientists as implausible and shunned by others for its connection with former President Donald J. Trump.
But fresh scrutiny from the Joe Biden administration and calls for greater transparency from prominent scientists have brought the theory back into the spotlight.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble?
