Monday, April 13, 2020

Discussion on the source of SARS-CoV-2 is distorted, scholars clarify

Reporter : Xiao Jing
Editor : Ming Xuan
Publisher : New Tang Dynasty Television
Ref : https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2020/04/13/a102822428.html
Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan
                                 / KUCINTA SETIA

Image : Scholars from the University of Cambridge analyzed 160 viral genomes from all over the world to map out the path of SARS-CoV-2 (covi, in short) spreading from China to the world. As a result, it was found that the closest type of covi to bats was found in Wuhan, which can be regarded as the "root of outbreak". (Creative Commons / Wikimedia)


There has been no evidence to show where covi originated. Scholars such as the University of Cambridge analyzed 160 viral genomes from all over the world to map out the path of covi spreading from China to the world. As a result, it was found that the closest type of covi to bats was found in Wuhan, which can be regarded as the "root of outbreak". The study also pointed out that the virus circulating in China is already a mutant strain.


This research is published on the website of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The article focuses on the "initial supernova" when covi spreads from China and Asia to Australia, Europe and North America through genetic mutations.


Scholars such as Cambridge University analyzed 160 viral genomes from all over the world from December last year to March this year, and reorganized the early virus "evolutionary path" that spread from East Asia to Europe, North America and other places, showing that the virus mainly has three types of variants. (Variant), the team is divided into categories A, B and C.

Peter Forster, a PhD student from the University of Cambridge, who participated in the research, and his colleagues found that the "Variant A" variant of the COVID-19 virus is the most primitive virus genome found in the human body. The viruses extracted from the body are the most similar. The virus was found in Wuhan, but surprisingly, it is not the main virus type in the city.

The researchers referred to the "Class A" variant as "the root of the outbreak" and pointed out that there are only a few cases of the Class A virus in Wuhan, including the presence of American patients living in Wuhan; In Australia, there have been a large number of cases of type A virus.

Researchers describe that the type A virus, which is the “root cause of the outbreak,” mutates into type B in China, and type B then mutates into type C. The "Category B" variant is the main type in mainland China (ie Wuhan), and it has not spread out of East Asia; the "Category C" is the main type in Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea in Asia, and not found in mainland China.

Dr. Foster emphasized that the team only analyzed the early cases of the epidemic. There are currently too many rapid virus mutations, so it is difficult to sort out the neat CPV virus pedigree.

The team said that analyzing the evolutionary path of the virus helps track the source of unrecorded viruses and prevent a new round of outbreaks.

The China Communist Party (CCP) once again distorted the source of the virus.

It is worth noting that after the results of this study were published, some netizens claimed that Type A virus was not endemic in China, but spread in large numbers in the United States. So, they questioned whether the virus originated in the United States.

In this regard, Dr. Foster, the first author of the study, emphasized in an interview with the CCP media The Global Times that this argument is a misinterpretation of the results of his team's research. He also said that their method can be applied to the latest covi viral genome sequencing to help predict future global disease spread and surge.

Lin Qingshun, a retired professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, also wrote in the media that the number of cases caused by covi is not directly related to the source. In terms of the number ratio, although the prevalence of the original virus strain in the United States is higher than in China, it is not possible to draw conclusions about the origin of the virus.

Qingshun raised an analogy, "As everyone knows, the largest race in the United States' population is White, but would you say that the ancestral race in the United States is White, not American Indian?" 

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