WEBVTT - What We Know About Covid's Origins 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:07.840 Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two d 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:13.360 and nine since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.720 we're bringing you a special episode. Scientists have long believed 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.320 the source of a pandemic can be traced back to bats. 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.920 Pioneering research by Australian veterinarian Dr Hume Field more than 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.600 twenty years ago showed why bats are an important host 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.920 of some of humanity's most feared viruses. Bloomberg Senior editor 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.520 Jason Gale recently caught up with Hume to hear more 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.680 about how the stars COVIE two virus got from bats 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:51.240 two people. It's been a year since COVID nineteen emerged 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.160 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. A lot is 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.600 being learned in that time, but Hume says questions still 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.960 remain about the coronavirus origins. What we don't have is 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:06.760 it really is much more information about where it's come from. 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.520 And understandably, all the focus has been on getting the 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:15.440 diagnostics up, getting the human treatment protocols up, but we 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:20.160 still don't have much information, at least published, about where 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.840 this virus may have come from. Humor is part of 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.919 an international task force set up by the Lancet Medical Journal. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.720 He says at least two things have frustrated the research efforts, 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:35.000 international travel restrictions and politics. One of the unfortunate things, 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.360 and part of it is the circumstance of COVID ninety 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.200 disease and the inability to travel and shutdowns and stuff 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.520 like that, is that that investigation hasn't been able to 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.320 be a collaborative investigation. It hasn't been able to be 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:54.960 an international, um multi institutional kind of global investigation. And 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.400 as I said, that's in part because of the constraints 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.640 of the infectivity of the virus, but it's in part 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.800 alls so because of the what I think is a 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.560 tragic politicization of the science around this. Humors helped investigate 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:12.639 several international disease outbreaks, including the origins of Stars almost 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.880 twenty years ago. Back then, a team that included Chinese, American, 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.160 and Australian scientists work together to trace the virus to bats, 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:26.840 and the result was a collaborative and joint body of 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.960 work and knowledge that was shared and was um you know, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:36.200 accepted in the scientific community. The problem we have with 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:41.400 this politicization of science and almost you know, the conspiracy 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:45.520 fairest thing is that the Chinese scientists might well be 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.560 able to get to the to the bottom of this, 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.760 and may well have a very plausible identification of both 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:57.280 a natural reservoir and a pathway, a conjute, if you like, 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:03.919 an epidemiological bridge to human spillover the ongoing challenges, how 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.400 do we how do we make any findings that Chinese 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.400 scientists may already have in this area, and any additional 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.760 findings that we make, how do we make those broadly 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.520 accepted to what now seems to be quite a cynical 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:26.160 and politicized audience in some sectors of him says, the 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.840 only way to have the Task Force investigators and their 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.600 results accepted as being legitimate and credible is if they 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.040 consider all hypotheses the laws. They need to back up 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:40.720 their theories with strong evidence. So we've got, you know, 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.320 something like half a dozen hypotheses that start with some 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.920 version of a bad human transmission, so it might be 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.360 about human director then goes and spread it somewhere else, 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.400 or it might be a bad intermediate and etcetera, etcetera. 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:00.800 So there are several versions of that poten actual scenario, 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.720 right down to you know some of the evidently you 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:12.680 know less well based conspiracy type approaches about releases and 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.160 labor scapes. There are about a dozen people on the team. 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.680 Kim says that once they've gone over the evidence, they 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.560 were trying to identify it the most plausible scenario for 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.000 how the virus entered humans and became efficient at spreading 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:30.200 from person to person. This is really about understanding what happened. 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:34.040 He are firstly to do that, to understand what happened 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.400 here in this context of sas Kobe two and the 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:42.200 resulting COVID nineteen, but certainly to understand what that pathway 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.960 is so we can mitigate it being used again, if 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.520 you like, by a subject of emerging disease. Him says, 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.560 scientific thinking around the new coronavirus has changed over the 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.920 past year. Cases were initially linked to a giant indoor 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.480 fresh produce market in Central war Hunt. I just thought 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.040 the transmission to humans could have come from the animals 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.839 on sale. Then there's president for this. The original SARS 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.200 virus in two thousand and two was linked to one 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.000 of these sites in the southern province of Guangdong. The 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:17.919 original reports and the association with the wet market and 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.000 the parallels of their parent parallels with sas kov One, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.799 I think did shape the original perceptions and the original thinking. 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.880 More and more people from an epidemiological perspective, including me, 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.920 are thinking that what we've seen come out over you know, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.039 these last nine months in terms of additional info, even 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.680 though would have been sort of jigsaw piece size stuff 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:50.280 with publications, etcetera, does suggest that that one market event 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.039 may have been more likely an amplification or at least 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.760 an increase in the efficiency of the virus in human 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:07.039 to human transmission. The earliest known COVID nineteen cases in 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.400 Uhan were not linked to the market. This means it's 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.400 possible the virus began infecting humans elsewhere. Jim says it's 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.680 likely that transmission occurred several times before the virus eventually 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:23.360 sparked a global pandemic, As often happens with these emerging diseases. 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.560 You know, it doesn't necessarily taken. In fact, it typically 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.600 doesn't take the first time and become very efficient human 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.599 to human transmission. You might get one person sick, and 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.240 you might get one generation of transfer one person or 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.600 another and it dies out, etcetera. Etcetera. As we better 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.279 understand that geographic occurrence and the temple account of the 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.640 earlier cases will clarify that aspect. Scientists think that the 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.800 virus came from horseshy bats, but they're not the only 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.200 animals they can spread it. In Europe and more recently 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.200 in the United States, it's become clear that mink are 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.680 highly susceptible to sasko its who This has led to 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.520 mass cullings of these animals on pelt farms. The mink scenario, 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.320 to me, says, where you've got a large population of 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:11.200 susceptible animals in the right conditions, with a certain density, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.160 then this virus is just going to go right through it. 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.880 And I also think that gives us some insight into 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.920 where we need to be going, how we need to 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:27.080 be shaping our investigations of the origins of this virus. 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.000 Him says, they'll need to test wild animals and those 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:34.600 raised in captivity for coronavirus antibodies for clues. We need 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:40.800 to be identifying potential plausible populations with some kind of 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.480 trace back if we can from what the earlier cases 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.200 might have had contact with. I've already got some clues 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.679 about the species and locations where related bats or bats 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:54.160 with related coronaviruses are, and potentially also at the intermediate 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:58.240 post level. Given the viruses affinity for mink, him says 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.920 it makes sense to screen similar animals like ferrets and weasels. 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.680 The results might fill in some gaps and help us 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:11.480 understand the coronavirus is mysterious journey from bats to humans. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:31.400 And that was Jason Gale in conversation with Hume Field. 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.480 And that's it for our show today. For coverage of 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.359 the outbreak from one barrows around the world, visit Bloomberg 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.559 dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.200 please leave us a review and a rating on Apple 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.640 Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:53.440 listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily Edition is 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:58.040 produced by Tophah foreheads Jordan Gospore, Magnus Henriksen and me 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:03.280 Laura Carlson. Original music by Leo Sidrian. Our editors are 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.920 Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.200 of Podcasts. Thanks for listening.