Imagine the smartest kids in your school arguing to each other about the solution to a problem, but they can’t conclude on the correct one.
That’s basically how science research works. Except there are no teachers to tell them which one is the really correct answer.
For example, climate change is one thing that took quite a while before all the smart kids agree on that answer. Something like COVID-19 that just popped up will still take some time before that happens.
So the dumb kids like me waiting to copy their answers still have to wait a while.
What I’m trying to say is that science is still an ongoing process, and whatever you read below can still be disproven later.
This new study cited is also not peer-reviewed yet.
South China Morning Post, interviewing the team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge, posted an article on the study as well as a video:
So, what’s one of the smart kids saying this time?
It May Not Have Started In Wuhan, But Further South
The team analysed the virus using a phylogenetic network – which basically means they used the voodoo of math and algorithms to try to figure out where patient zero started.
But you see, coronaviruses can mutate, which is why it’s so hard to trace. That’s also the reason why the outbreak may have started even earlier.
Previous studies, like an older one the team also did, only looked at 160 strains of the virus. Less data means less accurate results. This meant that previous conclusions that the virus started in Wuhan could be wrong.
“If I am pressed for an answer, I would say the original spread started more likely in southern China than in Wuhan,” University of Cambridge geneticist Peter Forster said.
In comparison, the new study looked at 1,001 strains and the different mutations, but even so, that’s still not enough data.
“But proof can only come from analysing more bats, possibly other potential host animals, and preserved tissue samples in Chinese hospitals stored between September and December.
“This kind of research project would help us understand how the transmission happened, and help us prevent similar instances in the future.”
Initial Outbreak May Have Occured Between 13 September 2019 and 7 December 2019
What they know is that Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, came from bats. It has 96% identical genes with another coronavirus Chinese scientists isolated from bat droppings in the southwestern province of Yunnan in 2013.
But relax, that doesn’t mean that it started in 2013. Remember about mutations? The difference between the 2013 Yunnan version and Sars-CoV-2 is hundreds of mutations. A coronavirus usually acquires one mutation per month.
“The virus may have mutated into its final ‘human-efficient’ form months ago, but stayed inside a bat or other animal or even human for several months without infecting other individuals,” Forster said.
By calculations, the initial outbreak could have occurred between 13 September 2019 and 7 December 2019.
Reader: Hold on a sec, are you gonna just ignore that he said a coronavirus mutates once per month, which means it could mutate even further?
That is something in the next section to talk about.
The Scientific Buts
As I said, other smart kids haven’t agreed with the answer yet.
A genetic researcher with the Kunming Institute of Zoology in Yunnan, Su Bing, says that phylogenetic networks are reliable and have many applications, but there are limits.
It is affected by sample size and the assumption of mutation speed.
Which means that unpredictable transformations can make the conclusions unreliable.
“So it cannot be very precise – there is always a margin for error,” he said. “This work may provide some important clues to future investigations, but the conclusions should be treated with caution.”
And then there’s another plot twist in the study: The first strain isolated and reported by Chinese scientists was actually younger than the original type that caused the outbreak.
The United States actually had strains closer to a bat virus compared to Wuhan. This issue led to more debates in the research community.
An explanation from Forster is that the original may have first appeared in China, but was more adaptive to the American population and environment.
So in the end, this means the study isn’t conclusive, but we know that the research community as a whole is definitely getting closer to an answer.
Over in TikTok, there’s a drama involving property agents that’s caused by us. Here’s what happened:
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