New study suggests COVID-19 hopped from dogs to humans. Here's why you should be skeptical.

This news article is misleading. Please read the original paper or my answers to media questions at http://dambe.bio.uottawa.ca/publications/Q_A.pdf

I do not believe you really answered the question about China being the origin of SARS and now this virus - you said China is a big country, which is true, but the problem with China is not being big, it is the huge trade in live wild animals. Please address this.
 
Nov 26, 2019
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That short movie telling us that the lady blamed Trump for her husband dying is true about her blaming Trump but you left out the fact that she and her husband did not get along, she did not consult a doctor, she is a Trump hater, and she was pretty stupid to intentionally use something that was configured to clean fish tanks to heal any kind of disease. It is also strange that she was well acquainted with the product and did not know that it could cause harm.
 
I blame Trump for a lot of failures in this epidemic - some of whic
A new study suggests that the novel coronavirus evolved in dogs before infecting humans. An expert said the study can't draw this conclusion.

New study suggests COVID-19 hopped from dogs to humans. Here's why you should be skeptical. : Read more

I do not pretend to understand this article, it goes over my head. I did go to the link the author posted and saw when he was asked about China being a hazard for new diseases, he said China was a huge country with a lot of animal species - and pointed out you would not expect new diseases to originate in the Vatican, it's very small and has no wildlife.

In other words, did not address the live wildlife markets as a source of emerging diseases at all, even though every virologist in the world identifies them as an unnecessary hazard. Biased as hell in other words

To the extent I did understand his feral dogs as carriers of the disease theory, it sounds totally specious. There is apparently an anomalously low number of sites on the virus called CpG sites. The author claims this could mean it evolved to live in dog intestines, where CpG sites get attacked by ZAP - a viral defense molecule put out by dogs.

He says a lower number of CpG sistes means our bodies can not fight it as well, and correlates with increased virulence.

None of that has anything whatever to do with dogs of course - and when there was an attempt to infect dogs with the virus, it failed (but cats DO carry it, and are a serious risk factor)

There is no evidence for his theory at all - and not really much of a theoretical basis for it..

In fact, all the evidence he cites leads back to horsehoe bats and there is no clear reason there had to be any intermediate animal, people in China were eating horseshoe bats, and a virus present in them may have mutated enough to be much more dangerous to humans - maybe by losing CpG sites, which of course does not require dogs at all.
 

LCarlson

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I do not believe you really answered the question about China being the origin of SARS and now this virus - you said China is a big country, which is true, but the problem with China is not being big, it is the huge trade in live wild animals. Please address this.

It is important to note that there are unregulated meat markets around the globe, on every continent, which trade in live animals and wild animals. A case could be made for stronger regulations for all of them, but they may be very difficult to enforce.
Food-borne disease is a constant threat, even in the most advanced countries with significant regulations, as annual recalls for lettuce, ice cream, milk, ground beef, etc. in the US alone can demonstrate.
~LC
 

DRH

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Indeed, this is another specious 'study'. So much misleading irresponsible info is being released. Dogs are being 'dumped' by people who have been scared into submission. It is criminal for anyone under some flimsy rubric of 'authority' to add to this tragedy.
1. The fatality rate for the general pop for CV2 will be far less than flu. HERD immunity has been building and is most likely near 50% already. This virus was already seeded in the Western US big cities in DEC. 400,000 travelers from China came predominantly to the Western cities - and Holiday travelers took it from there. High risk groups will be affected more severely - just as with flu and other pathogens.
2. While dogs can test positive for CV2 - they have incredible immune responses that neutralize the virus very quickly. Most don't even get 'mildly' sick - and are NOT an important source of INFECTION TO MAN.
3. The source of this coronavirus is now known. The horse shoe bat is known to harbor and crank out coronaviruses - and a 'unique' coronavirus was isolated in a horse shoe bat at the Wuhan Virology Institute WVI. This was not a 'natural' jumping to mammals. The head of the project of bat studies begged for help. Poor procedures and a mishap permitted a vial of infected fluid obtained from these bats to spill, infecting the head researcher and some techs. These were patient zero - They incubated the virus and took it into the community. The Head gal died and was quietly cremated. None of these workers at the crematorium were advised on protective practices. The Chinese gov has denied that this gal is dead - yet, none of her colleagues nor family have heard from her - the gov has not produced her and her photo was removed from the list of workers assigned to Bat Studies. This never happens - even if you move to another job.

Meat markets had nothing to do with this virus getting to humans. Horse shoe bats are not found in the Wuhan area, nor are they sold at meat markets. Pres Xi admonished poor bio-research security and protocols early Jan or Dec, as he very well knew of the mishap occurring at the WVI. The US State Department had issued warnings to our gov as far back as 2018, concerning poor protocols and the risk of a bio-threats being accidentally released from WVI (US involved as we help fund the WVI). Pres Xi admonishment along with the Chinese gov attempt to 'hide' the issue from the world - is further evidence that was NOT a natural occurrence.

I have attached a video produced by a brave American who lived and worked in China for the last 10 years. He understands their culture and amassed evidence that is beyond compelling. Even the responsible News outlets are now aware of this info - and have uncovered more to support it.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&feature=youtu.be
 
It is important to note that there are unregulated meat markets around the globe, on every continent, which trade in live animals and wild animals. A case could be made for stronger regulations for all of them, but they may be very difficult to enforce.
Food-borne disease is a constant threat, even in the most advanced countries with significant regulations, as annual recalls for lettuce, ice cream, milk, ground beef, etc. in the US alone can demonstrate.
~LC
I am sorry, I was very unclear - my post was actually addressed to the scientist whose theory you were writing about, not to you as the author.
However, reading your response, I am just as upset with your answer as I was with him.
First off, "unregulated meat markets around the globe, on every continent" ? Is pretty much a red herring, isn't it? Are you trying to claim, because some other places are doing something very unsafe, China should also be allowed to do something very unsafe? No, of course you would never say that, because it sounds very silly when I put it that way, doesn't it? In fact, with 1/6 the world's population, China is actually in a position to do more than any other country, isn't it? Unless you disagree with that statement,, let's stick with that instead of "China should not have to do anything, since other places will still allow global health hazards", shall we? By the way, I think it also "important to note" that China may have far, far more than 1/6th the trade in wild animals and by far the most trade for any country of equivalent wealth. If you do not dispute those statements, let's "note" them as well.

Now, let's talk about your admission that " a case could be made for stronger regulations for all of them:" - WRONG !!! Or at least misleading - not case needs be made at all - because EVERY virologist in the world believes those markets are likely sources of this pandemic, of SARS, of Ebola, probably a few others - saying " a case could be made '" is deceptive and mealy mouthed - the case HAS been made, more than once now. Not a theoretical case based on theories of viral transmission, but the biggest pandemic in 100 years and biggest economic calamity since either WW2 or the Great Depression.

The only valid point was the claim the markets might go underground - which, while certainly possible, is again a red herring - maybe you could argue a regulated trade, where dangerous species were closely monitored, would be safer than a flat out ban and purely black market trade - doubtful, as we do not know what we are looking for until people get sick, because these virae are NOVEL. The way you make the meat safe is by cooking it - in other words, no LIVE animal markets.

You end your reply with a completely irrelevant statement, not worthy of any science writer, or just anyone with any science degree - about "food borne illness" - surely you recognize we are not discussing "food borne illness" and I can not believe you said that in good faith, it seems like an attempt to confuse weak minded people with irrelevancies., If bad lettuce, ice cream, milk, and ground beef in the US was going to kill people in the rest of the world, then we need to stop producing or selling it ASAP - and we ought to be subjected to international pressure, in the form of a trade embargo, to force us to do that.

But those things have NOTHING WHATEVER, NOTHING WHATEVER, to do with the Wuhan pandemic, and you must know that. Wuhan virus is not a 'food borne illness", if it was no one not eating bats would care about it.
 
Indeed, this is another specious 'study'. So much misleading irresponsible info is being released. Dogs are being 'dumped' by people who have been scared into submission. It is criminal for anyone under some flimsy rubric of 'authority' to add to this tragedy.
1. The fatality rate for the general pop for CV2 will be far less than flu. HERD immunity has been building and is most likely near 50% already. This virus was already seeded in the Western US big cities in DEC. 400,000 travelers from China came predominantly to the Western cities - and Holiday travelers took it from there. High risk groups will be affected more severely - just as with flu and other pathogens.
2. While dogs can test positive for CV2 - they have incredible immune responses that neutralize the virus very quickly. Most don't even get 'mildly' sick - and are NOT an important source of INFECTION TO MAN.
3. The source of this coronavirus is now known. The horse shoe bat is known to harbor and crank out coronaviruses - and a 'unique' coronavirus was isolated in a horse shoe bat at the Wuhan Virology Institute WVI. This was not a 'natural' jumping to mammals. The head of the project of bat studies begged for help. Poor procedures and a mishap permitted a vial of infected fluid obtained from these bats to spill, infecting the head researcher and some techs. These were patient zero - They incubated the virus and took it into the community. The Head gal died and was quietly cremated. None of these workers at the crematorium were advised on protective practices. The Chinese gov has denied that this gal is dead - yet, none of her colleagues nor family have heard from her - the gov has not produced her and her photo was removed from the list of workers assigned to Bat Studies. This never happens - even if you move to another job.

Meat markets had nothing to do with this virus getting to humans. Horse shoe bats are not found in the Wuhan area, nor are they sold at meat markets. Pres Xi admonished poor bio-research security and protocols early Jan or Dec, as he very well knew of the mishap occurring at the WVI. The US State Department had issued warnings to our gov as far back as 2018, concerning poor protocols and the risk of a bio-threats being accidentally released from WVI (US involved as we help fund the WVI). Pres Xi admonishment along with the Chinese gov attempt to 'hide' the issue from the world - is further evidence that was NOT a natural occurrence.

I have attached a video produced by a brave American who lived and worked in China for the last 10 years. He understands their culture and amassed evidence that is beyond compelling. Even the responsible News outlets are now aware of this info - and have uncovered more to support it.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&feature=youtu.be
You seem to make a lot of claims without backing them up. No one has given any good reason this is not a lot worse than flu. You say the death rate will be less than for flu but we did a massive shutdown- I do not believe it was done well at all, but it was done = which vastly reduced the opportunities for the virus to spread. The fact the death rate is low now, while the virus is still spreading, the number of newly infected people still growing in most of the country, means nothing. Even if we level it off, we will still have about 1,000 people dying per day in the near future.
 
Apr 15, 2020
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@admin it is one thing to post articles to get your readership up, but not knowing the impact of an article like this is another.
Dogs are being ABANDONED everywhere all over the world purely based on headlines like yours, nobody bothers to read the article, and in this case nowhere was your article led to covid 19 and dogs. Dogs have canine coronavirus which had been there for years, it is not related to Covid 19, more than 4k dogs were tested and all came out negative.
PLEASE DO RESPONSIBLE REPORTING. TAKE THIS ARTICLE DOWN.
 
Apr 15, 2020
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xxia said:


This news article is misleading. Please read the original paper or my answers to media questions at http://dambe.bio.uottawa.ca/publications/Q_A.pdf
On the contrary, I really appreciate that the author of this news article went the extra distance and got a highly informed outside evaluation of how misleading the original publication is. I did read the original article in some depth, and it is in my opinion almost entirely unfounded speculation that should not have been published. Your Q and A is all over the place and does not address the central criticisms, which center around the lack of positive evidence backing your claims. I think that as scientists, we need to go the extra mile to be more careful than this regarding COVID-19 conclusions, and I wish you had reconsidered and withdrawn the article prior to publication. You've done a lot of good work, but this does not stand up to scrutiny.
 

LCarlson

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I am sorry, I was very unclear - my post was actually addressed to the scientist whose theory you were writing about, not to you as the author.

I am not the author of the article.

I do believe that all food markets should be regulated, but recognize how difficult regulations are to implement and enforce. We are in an evolving global discussion on the future of disease and our species, that much is certain. The paths we take will be determined by our scientific communities and our governments, for good or ill.
 
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A new study suggests that the novel coronavirus evolved in dogs before infecting humans. An expert said the study can't draw this conclusion.

New study suggests COVID-19 hopped from dogs to humans. Here's why you should be skeptical. : Read more

"Her group found that, in general, mutations that add CpG sites tend to be found in viral samples taken from people less often than mutations that remove CpG sites from the genome. "

Can someone parse the above sentence?
 
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I blame Trump for a lot of failures in this epidemic - some of whic


I do not pretend to understand this article, it goes over my head. I did go to the link the author posted and saw when he was asked about China being a hazard for new diseases, he said China was a huge country with a lot of animal species - and pointed out you would not expect new diseases to originate in the Vatican, it's very small and has no wildlife.

In other words, did not address the live wildlife markets as a source of emerging diseases at all, even though every virologist in the world identifies them as an unnecessary hazard. Biased as hell in other words

To the extent I did understand his feral dogs as carriers of the disease theory, it sounds totally specious. There is apparently an anomalously low number of sites on the virus called CpG sites. The author claims this could mean it evolved to live in dog intestines, where CpG sites get attacked by ZAP - a viral defense molecule put out by dogs.

He says a lower number of CpG sistes means our bodies can not fight it as well, and correlates with increased virulence.

None of that has anything whatever to do with dogs of course - and when there was an attempt to infect dogs with the virus, it failed (but cats DO carry it, and are a serious risk factor)

There is no evidence for his theory at all - and not really much of a theoretical basis for it..

In fact, all the evidence he cites leads back to horsehoe bats and there is no clear reason there had to be any intermediate animal, people in China were eating horseshoe bats, and a virus present in them may have mutated enough to be much more dangerous to humans - maybe by losing CpG sites, which of course does not require dogs at all.

I do not pretend to understand the logic of your thinking.
I do find Xia's article logival on why COVID-19 hopped from dogs to humans.
In contrast, Pennings ' refuation using BK virus as an example is a lot less convincing. To be sure, it shows that low CpG sites is an insufficient condition. But Xia's conclusion is still valid with low CpG sites as an necessary but insuffficient condition for virulence.
 
I am not the author of the article.

I do believe that all food markets should be regulated, but recognize how difficult regulations are to implement and enforce. We are in an evolving global discussion on the future of disease and our species, that much is certain. The paths we take will be determined by our scientific communities and our governments, for good or ill.

I am sorry I got you confused with the author of the article. I realize I was very angry in my reply, but what I see is China being let of the hook entirely, when, at the least, the government there let the wildlife markets remain open after SARS outbreak, and at least partially suppressed the research on this outbreak (tens of thousands of deaths from that most likely) and then kept the WHO from checking conditions in Wuhan.
I think we should not, from this standpoint, depend on government, which seems to be completely dysfunctional around the world, or the scientists, who have to have a different agenda, (to some extent, collaboration with China may be needed) lead the response on this.

What we need is for consumers in the US to boycott Chinese goods. I believe this will happen if people fully understand how much the Chinese government hurt them, and how much our business interests and government officials are going to act to protect China.