> "I would be very cautious," about these findings, said Dr. George Rutherford, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, who was also not a part of the study. The results "have to be confirmed with different antibody tests," that look for the prevalence of antibodies that target other parts of the coronavirus.
> His previous experience has shown that such antibody tests for the coronavirus' RBD can create a lot of false positives, Rutherford told Live Science. And because this is "such an unexpected finding," it should be confirmed with other antibody tests such as those that look for antibodies against another one of the coronavirus' proteins, an outer coat called a "nucleocapsid," which is also unique to the novel coronavirus, he said.
> Still, "it's not totally outside the realm of possibility," that the virus circulated in Italy earlier than thought. because there is a lot of travel back and forth between China and Italy, especially northern Italy, he said. But considering the earliest COVID-19 case in Wuhan was reported to be in November, "it really gives me pause to say let's really make sure we got this right before we try and explain it," Rutherford said. [0]
> I'm hoping that you are as cautious about pangolin and secret lab stories
Seems like you are trying to ridicule me just because you disagree with me.
'Wuhan Institute of Virology' (China's only BSL4 lab) is less than 14km from 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market'.
The 'Wuhan Centre for Disease Prevention & Control' is 1.4 km from the 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market'.
Both are public institutions with published research on both virus classification and gain of function experiments.
This is circunstancial evidence. Unlike the previous origin investigation for SARS-Cov1, there has been little transparence or effort to investigate the origin of SARS-Cov2.
Let's agree to disagree. If indeed the origin is a Southern China zoonotic event, which then happened to have a superspreader event in Wuhan, then it is in the interest of the Chinese government to investigate this and disclose this evidence to dissolve international doubts and concerns.
> His previous experience has shown that such antibody tests for the coronavirus' RBD can create a lot of false positives, Rutherford told Live Science. And because this is "such an unexpected finding," it should be confirmed with other antibody tests such as those that look for antibodies against another one of the coronavirus' proteins, an outer coat called a "nucleocapsid," which is also unique to the novel coronavirus, he said.
> Still, "it's not totally outside the realm of possibility," that the virus circulated in Italy earlier than thought. because there is a lot of travel back and forth between China and Italy, especially northern Italy, he said. But considering the earliest COVID-19 case in Wuhan was reported to be in November, "it really gives me pause to say let's really make sure we got this right before we try and explain it," Rutherford said. [0]
[0] https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-circulating-italy-ea...