The Week - UK (2021-02-06)

52 The last word

THE WEEK6February 2021

Inthebeginningtherewas

asickbat.Hereisonestory

ofwhathappenednext,the

storythatyouareprobably

mostfamiliarwith.In

November 2019 ,thisbat

wasinfectedwithavirus

thatforaeonshadspread

frombattobat.Now

though,eversosubtly,it

hadchangedanditwas

readytoliveelsewhere.

InthelateChinese

autumnalair, thevirus,a

coronavirus,founditsway

intoapangolin,astrange,

scalymammalthatcurlsup

inatoughkeratinousball

whenthreatened.Here the

virusagainmutated to

adapt toanew host.The

pangolinthenmetahuman

whobelieveditsscales

couldcure illness.It wastakentoamarketin thecityofWuhan

where,ratherthanstoppingdisease, itstartedthe most

devastatingdisease ofthe 21st century.

Buthereisanother story,onethat perhaps youarelessfamiliar

with.Thebat wasstillsick,butperhaps notin November, and

perhapsnoteven inChina.Thevirusfound itsway intohumans

andspreadfor weeks,possiblymonths, possibly years–even,

somedisputed studies suggest,

viaother countries –until,

oneday,oneofthosehumans

decidedto visit amarket.

Wuhan wasstillthe siteofthe

superspreadingevent;just not

ground zero.

Andhereisathirdstory,whichyou are probably aware ofbut

mayhave dismissed outofhand.The virus startedinbats,and

wastakeninto Wuhanby ahuman,but not inahuman. A

researcher fromthe Wuhan Instituteof Virol ogycolle cted the

virus tostudy. Then yearslater, perhaps aftertweakingits

genome, therewasamistake.Afreezerwas left open,a

laboratory protocolignored, andthe virus escaped.

Whichis true? “Rightnow, wecan’ truleout an yhypotheses,”

says PeterDaszak, presidentof the EcoHealth Alliance. An expert

on when andhow diseasesspill over fr om animalpopulations, he

hasbeentasked byaLancetCommissionwithsolvingthe greatest

andmost intractable murder mystery in the world.Where didour

pandemic coronavirusoriginate?When? Andwhat happened

next?Rather than Colonel Mustard in the conservatorywith the

candlestick,was it thebat in themarketwiththe pangolin?The

scientist in the lab with the defrosting freezer?“Betweenthebats

andWuhan seafoodmarket there’sagap inourknowledge,”says

Dr Daszak,who is ,for hispart, highly scepticalof the laboratory

theory. “That gap needsto be worked on.”

On 31 December2019,Chinaannounced it wasinvestigating

pneumoniacases of “unknown aetiology”. For the coronavirus,

thatiswhenrecorded

historybegan,albeit

againstresistance.Thefirst

whistleblowerswere

silenced,thefirstChinese

scientiststopublishthe

genomehadtheirlabora-

toryinvestigated.Evenso,

afterthatpointweknow

withincreasingcertainty

whathappenednext.

Beforethat,wehaveonlya

hazypicture.Andofallthe

storiesitisthefirst,the

Wuhanwetmarketpatient

zero,thatisbecomingless

and less likely.

Theearliestcasetobe

identified,Chinese

scientistsnowclaim,

predatestheWuhan

marketoutbreak.

Sharpeningthathazypicturetoseewherethatcase came from

would be, inthebestoftimes,unimaginablyhard. Acoronavirus

is small.Putamillioninaball and theywould fillthisfull stop.

Forus,thebitthat matters–astringofnucleicacid–issmaller

still,andisitself made upof30,000 chemical “bases”.Oneday,

while copyingitself, ahandful ofthose changed.Thisisthetrue

startofthepandemic. Howcanwe possibly findoutthenatural

historyof aviruswecannotsee and didnotnoticeuntilitwastoo

late? Andhowcanwe doso

whenthe answerisso freighted?

Becausethesearenotthebestof

times.Thequestionofwhere

ourcoronavirusstartedlifeis

notjust avirological issue, itis

ageopolitical one.For scientists,it hasbecome impossible to

separatetheirwork from politics, fromaccusationan dcounter-

accusation. “Ithasbecome extremelytoxic,”saysFrançois

Balloux, director ofthe UCLGeneticsInst itute.LinfaWang,

directorof theProgramme in EmergingInfectious Diseasesat

Duke-NUS MedicalSchool, Singapore,says it hascausedschisms

in scientific collaborations. “I am an ethnic Chinese withavery

strong connectionto China,”hesays.“Ihavezero collaboration

from Chinese scientists dealing with Covid-19.The sensitivityis

so much thatthey arescared, an dI’m scared.”

Dr Daszaksays theatmosphere has,forall of them, made a

difficultjob fa rharder. “Ifyouhad no politicsat all, no

conspiracy theories,no previous US StateDepartment headswho

said,‘China’s toblame for this outbreak andthere needtobe

reparations,’ it wouldbe straightforwardtofind alot moreout,”

he says. They couldtrack early cases tosource,they couldsurvey

wildlife forsimilarviruses, theycould trawl bloodbanksfor signs

of antibodies.“Itwould stilltakeacouple ofyears–but scientists

working together candoalottoget closer to the origins.”

For Dr Daszak,patientzero will st ill most likely befoun datthe

pointwhere bats meet humans.And, he says,there are no

shortageofsuchplaces. Hesees noneed fo rapangolin. “In rural

How did Covid-19 start?

Thesearch for patient zero

Awet market in Wuhan: ground zero or justasuperspreading event?

AstheWorldHealthOrganisationteambeginsitsinvestigationinWuhan,TomWhippleexamines

thevexedattemptstosolvethemysteryofthecoronavirus’sorigins

“Here isathird theory: the virus was taken

to Wuhan to study. Then there wasamistake,

and the virus escaped from the laboratory”

©S

CIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY