TWiV 876: Spillover market with Michael Worobey

Watching this in 2024!!!!!

Listening in April 2024: living in Changsha, 300km S of Wuhan, I have a proximity interest in the origins. While I've been aware of Worobey's study, I've not previously heard him talk about it or read his works. While I've been pursuaded of his conclusions, I've tried to keep an open mind to other possibilities. Each time another researcher casts doubt on Worobey I've pricked up my ears. But each time, other researchers reveal that those Lab Leakers have made significant errors in their methodology and studies. For me his conclusions remain.

Sure, China has big question marks about its transparency issues. But let's not think that Western govt are immune from the same tendency. Remember WMD? Zero evidence from their security services. The same now. The various Western govt bodies have revealed ZERO evidence for their conclusions.

Now knowing the prevalence of asymptomatic infection, it's my assumption that it was impossible to prevent a pandemic by closing down Wuhan in late December rather than 23 Jan 2020. Various official bodies now suggest that c 44% of infections are asymptomatic. During the outbreaks in Xi'an and Shanghai, the mass testings and repeated testings showed that upto 10x were asymptomatic/presymptomatic. Once started it would be almost impossible to stop.

First case in USA if often suggested being in Washington State later in January. HOWEVER, the huge CES show in Las Vegas 7-10 Jan 2020 resulted in 'CES Flu' which has been well reported in the press. Some tech jounalists who got infected have since been tested showing that they had C19. CES had 171,000 participants including 11,000 Chinese and 5,000 Europeans. To me that speaks of it being a probable super-spreading event.

Geez, it's difficult to listen to Worobey. I wish there was a single document list of events incorporating his stuff as well as Andersen, Holmes and others who were there. Or better yet, a video.

I missed this at the time. Thanks.

Every person who commented here saying it was a conspiracy. CHINA DELIBERATELY UNLEASHED a deadly virus on us to destroy our people and economy. They must pay...

Still waiting for the crossover animal to be found? Good luck.

Why SARS COV2 better replicate at low tissue temperature?
At TWiV 659 at min29 Christian Drosten indicate that to replicate SARS COV2 must decrease incubator temperature to 34 degree C.

Did ground glass opacity occur also in Micoplasma pneumonia?
Did low temperature agglutinine occur also after SARS COV2 infection?

how about stop eating meat? or is that a taboo suggestion?

Uhhh pretty clear it came from lab…we need to start calling natural origin people conspiracy theorists.

Where did you get the after data from for the cases in January?

Regarding "@ Robert Malone and Peter McCullough: A litany of untruths (Decoding the Gurus)..."

​​​​I clicked on the link and it just mentions the topic but Twiv virologists did not comment on the issue, right? I think Vincent said that he has no time to respond to the controversy point-by-point? I initially thought Malone was alright earlier on (Malone being an MD, vaccine developer, etc and all) until I looked into it more. It would be nice if Twiv could actually do a point-by-point rebuttal to Malone et al or point us to a credible person/entity who has? Has Science, Nature, etc taken on this controversy? Malone et al are getting a lot of coverage, and if they are wrong, I think that is enough of a reason for Twiv to tackle it head-on and be done with it. People are starting to look to Twiv for solid scientific analysis, especially on Covid, so I think it's worth the effort, IMHO.

Awesome podcast, as always. I don't get the John/Jon Snow reference? I'm thinking Game of Thrones.

Very informative, ty

Brilliant.

So, Worobey et al.’s argument is that they analyzed “early” case data from late December 2019 alongside environmental samples collected from the market in January 2020 and concluded that the apparent correlation between some of the “early” cases and the market, coupled with a photograph Eddie Holmes took of a racoon dog in a cage in 2014, indicated to them that the pandemic must have, ipso facto, started at the market? That conclusion doesn't particularly follow from the premises.

All the genomic data (i.e., tMRCA) and epidemiological modelling (e.g., excess deaths) indicate the virus first entered the human population in Wuhan sometime in September-October, which means that by the time of the market-related events Worobey et al. describe in their paper (December 2019-January 2020), the local epidemic was already well underway with potentially several hundred to a few thousand cases. It seems that the more plausible explanation is that the market was simply host to a super-spreader event – maybe even “the” super-spreader event in Wuhan – but certainly not the origin.

I want to be charitable here, but it's getting harder and harder to take some of these preprints and NYT headlines seriously.

Thanks

Fabulous episode! (as usual....)
I'll have to listen again as I was painting during the playback.
A shoutout to SFU as both my son and daughter-in-law each have multiple degrees from that University. 👍🏼
Grazie, Vincent and the "TWiV Gang".

How did Maderna's 2016 patented additive get in animals at the Wuhan market ? Was there any place near the market doing gain of function research? Me thinks you're looking in the wrong place !

One can't help but wonder if Prof Michael Worobey is politically/economically/ideologically compromised given his inability to distinguish between discovery and origin of the virus and the ease with which he ignores data and other studies that eliminate the China Covid origin narrative. I found his overall talk very interesting but, very disturbing that it was so carefully nuanced. One particular point is the way he ignores the simple fact that the ancestor to lineage A and lineage B have no close ancestor in China.

While Prof Worobey provides an well presented, openly researched analysis, his conclusion that it is a "natural, local, etiology" remains less likely than a well-developed, intentional scheme to frame the WIV by a malevolent group who might benefit from even a limited viral pandemic which is particularly lethal to the elderly. The laboratory culture of SARS in a wide variety of animals and their cells has been ongoing since the earliest CDC culture and Novavax contract in 2004. Racoon dogs are raised for pelts in many parts of the world, including secretly in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario.

So the spike protein was from MODERNA! How did it get on the market?

Origin vs Epicenter....not the same thing. Origin could have been very remote while the Epicenter where it took hold and spread and was detected don't have to be the same locus. Given the HIGH number of mild or asymptomatic spreaders..the idea that we can trace the disease based on patients who had severe symptoms seems misguided. Also only 1/3rd of covid victims will have a fever when screened, it's almost a useless counter measure

So by the time lineage B was sampled in the market: it has already outcompeted lineage A?

Why wouldn't lab leak and natural origin have been equally valid hypotheses until decisive evidence came in? 🤷‍♀️ Isn't that literally how science works?

What a great surprise! I watched Michael Worobey's very interesting documenyary on 1819 Flu. Let me get some coffee and enjoy the podcast.

This vegan threw up every time I heard raccoon dog

I send money to Wikipedia as I agree it is great. Reliable.

Could the “farm” be a big lab just up the road?

All the evidence has been eaten.

I’ve read reports that Covid 19 was in Italy in 2019. Mostly Lombardy area. Blood from patients with experimental cancer med was shown to be positive for antibodies. How would that work?

Are you saying it may have come from the dog eating festival?
When CVD was first announced I read an article that a snake ate an infected bat. A person ate the snake from the wet market and fell ill. Doctors had no idea what the illness was so Chinese scientists stepped in. The patient and one scientists died from it. After that supposedly they began to study the virus. Sequence of events were the virus leaked from the lab.

‘If the glove fits———‘
—— then the Trumpites and China bashers from India and Australia are dead wrong!
The serology data is quite clear from Italy from Sept 2019. So what is the problem? Can’t wish it away.
It seems local Hunan administrative action was taken before the Chinese CDC got into the act. Just bureaucracies working in their own spheres. Happens all the time in the US. Suspicious Western minds!!
Would have been useful to have had a Chinese CDC scientist and the Italian scientist who did the serology on the panel for balance. Echo chambers should be avoided.

OMGoodness!

They eat hedgehogs! Effing barbarians.

Another excellent TWiV broadcast Vincent and the team.
I am a window washer and gigging musician and not a virologist but i have been following you for the last 18 months now and it certainly has been an education.
I do not miss any microbe TV broadcasts anymore as SARS Covid 2 certainly sparked an interest in me that i have never had before and you have taught me so much about viruses, vaccines and virology and you are now my only go to source for the truth about covid, i used to watch Campbell but stopped after a few months of watching you and the team as i could see the flaws and wrong information that he was saying after watching you for a few months.
I have done your virology live course when it was on and am really looking forward to your next online courses that you are planning on doing.
I can't believe that people still go to Campbell for info and people like Russell Brand, with 5 million followers and over 1 million views a day, he is telling people wrong information and that the lab leak theory is the truth.
Anyway once again Thank you to you Vincent and all the TWiV team for your excellent shows and big love from a hilltop farm in the mountains of Snowdonia, Wales.

this is more like a Sherlock Holmes mystery .unfortunately we still haven't found the murderer ,obviously in china

Fascinating 🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦

11:25am CDST only 1,500 views. Shameful. Hopefully thousands of science faculties will be utilizing this video/information in their classes during the next week.

A million thumbs up as always.

One thing to remember: China is not one person, and Chinese authorities are from different organizations. It is very shameful how many Chinese authorities have handled this, but we can't go back and fix that.

so my question is that it should have first affected the the sellers in the market not the buyers ? how can one understand that

Great work great TWiV
Thank you all ongoing

So engrossed reading the paper on his train, that Vincent missed his stop !!!

Is it possible to rule out the market as source of lab animals for various labs ? Or lab transient animals ending up in the market ?

Another GREAT TWiV. It’s a shame that the people who most need to hear this, will not. Conspiracies continue from those who are not educated or have no desire to hear truth for whatever reason.

Please stop with the endlessspeculation. Rather silly and beneath you sir.

Language, Language, language!

Lol.

We can tell spillover is all human fault. The question is how close are we from vaccine efficacy to slow transmissions from human to human. And every decade will be regional outbreaks of flu, sars, ebola, ect. And how easy is mutation in outbreak cases minimized by patient zero.