A scientific paper claims that humans acquired COVID-19 from a Chinese research lab, and not a food market. But instead of having the paper peer reviewed, they are trying to suppress it.

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

April 3, 2020

One of the great things about science is the peer review process. When one group of scientists comes to a conclusion, other groups of scientists are allowed to peer review the work of the original group, to try to determine whether or not the original research has merit.

This link, which no longer works, used to show a scientific paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus

Fortunately, the internet archive still has the paper at this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https:/www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus

The paper is titled, “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus.”

The paper’s lead author is Botao Xiao, from the South China University of Technology.

The paper’s publication month is February 2020.

The paper states:

“An article published on The Lancet reported that 27 of 41 infected patients were found to have contact with the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 meters from the seafood market. We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory…”

“… The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from the seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees. But the seafood market is in a densely-populated district of Wuhan, a metropolitan of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the bats to fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market.”

This paper has not been peer reviewed. I hope it will be.

If the statistics cited in the paper are true, then which of these two scenarios is more likely:

a) Humans contracted COVID-19 from a food market that is more than 900,000 meters away from the wild population of this bat species

or

b) Humans contracted COVID-19 from a lab that was doing research on bats and on coronavirus, and the lab is located only 280 meters from this food market

I’m curious to read of any peer reviews that get published.

And I’m curious to know why no peer reviews have been published so far.

And I’m also curious to know why the original link no longer works.

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