Most likely, however, Chinese experts consider the Indian subcontinent, where last year there was great heat and people and animals used the same sources of water.
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Beijing has repeatedly tried to get rid of the stigma that the pandemic has spread from China. The Chinese People’s Daily reported on its Facebook page last week that “all available evidence suggests that the coronavirus epidemic did not begin in Wuhan, central China.”
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“Wu-chan was the place where it was first detected, but it’s not where it came from,” said Ceng Kuang, a former chief epidemiologist at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many experts agree that he was dragged there. Already in the summer, there was speculation that he might have gotten there from Jenan, where in 2012 and 2013 the miners contracted diseases with similar symptoms to covid-19.
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However, this would not improve the country’s tarnished reputation, so China denies that the disease comes from anywhere in its territory. She’s trying to prove she was dragged there. A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, said in a letter: “Although China was the first to report cases (infections), this does not necessarily mean that the virus originated in China. The process of finding origin, which may involve more countries and regions, is ongoing. ”
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An attempt at proof
Chinese scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences have already sent an article to the Lancet scientific journal entitled Early latent transmission and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in human hosts. The text has not yet been reviewed and it is questionable whether it will ever be published in the Lancet, but in the meantime it has already leaked to the public – it was published by the Indian newspaper Deccan Herald. The text states that SARS-CoV-2 was most likely to be transmitted from animals to humans in India.
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The three scientists are trying to prove that the first human transmission did not take place in China, using phylogenetic analyzes. They assume that the original strain of the virus is the one with the fewest mutations in the process of evolution. Strains with other mutations are derived from it. Furthermore, experts apply the rule that there will be the most mutations at the site of the initial occurrence of the virus, because the organism is the longest there and therefore has the most opportunities to mutate. According to them, the methods used excluded Wuchan as the place of origin of the new coronavirus.
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In the text covered by the coronavirus gene sequence descriptions and duplication, they concluded that the SARS-CoV-2 strain (NC_045512), hereinafter referred to as (0042) found in Wuchan, is not the one with the smallest mutations.
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Czechia on an unclear list
They stated that there are 41 strains where there are fewer mutations. The strain with the smallest mutations has been detected in nine countries on four continents – including the Czech Republic.
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Others are India, Australia and the United States, which almost seems to be the choice of countries with which China currently has some disputes. However, suspicions of political motivation are refuted by Greece, Bangladesh, Russia and Serbia. Of course, Italy cannot be missing.
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However, the range is a bit wide. It shows that the path of searching for strains with the smallest mutations, without it being clear to which reference strain they are comparing, has not yielded such results that it can be said not only that the virus is not from China but also from where it originates. At the same time, the researchers themselves admitted that they did not reveal the root of this tree by mutations, but only came to the conclusion that the original was the strain, which they designated as (0001).
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How to get to India
Because this strain appeared in too many places, they applied the second rule that the most likely site of a new virus is where the most different mutations are recorded. And that, according to them, is the Indian subcontinent, more precisely India and Bangladesh. According to them, the statistical significance is so great that it cannot be overlooked.
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He even knows how it happened. They refer to information from Wikipedia, according to which there was the second longest drought on the Indian subcontinent last May from May to June, which caused problems with water availability. “The lack of water has led wild animals, like monkeys, to engage in a deadly struggle for water, which has certainly increased the chances of people and animals meeting.”
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Chinese researchers have not forgiven criticism of a less efficient health system and poor hygiene in both countries. “As we know, hygiene conditions in the subcontinent are imperfect and the public health system is less efficient. Because of this, it is conceivable that a virus with flu-like symptoms could have spread there for several months without being detected, ”the researchers said.
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At the end of the text, the Deccan Herald reminds that Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed over Ladak this year.
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Evidence from Italy
It will not be accidental to mention Italy either, because it was there that a study appeared indicating that anti-coronavirus antibodies had appeared in humans in the country in the autumn, probably as early as September. Blood samples from the cancer department were tested. However, virologist Jonathan Stoye points out that the evidence is weak and suggests that it could be antibodies against other types of coronaviruses. “It seems certain that the first recorded cases of the disease were in China,” Stoye added for The Guardian.
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“China is still struggling to come to terms with the fact that it is responsible for ‘original sin’ in the spread of the epidemic, undermining all its efforts to improve its image,” said Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund. “Recent months have shown the catastrophic impact of the pandemic on international public opinion about China,” Small told The Guardian.
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