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| A cluster of bats gathered in the eaves of a barn. |
There are a number of Trump loyalists who have been circulating the claim that "Covid19 originated in a Wuhan virology lab". This claims lacks merit. in this article, we will briefly apply the concept of Occam's Razor to the notion of how Covid19 originated, and look at several other factors that are counter to the virus lab origin claim. Occam's Razor is a concept from science which declares that "given any problem or puzzle, the simplest possible solution is most likely the correct one." Once we identify a simple scenario that adequately explains a phenomena, we should assume that simple scenario is accurate, unless compelling evidence emerges to suggest a different cause. The problem with human beings in general is that we have a natural tendency towards conspiratorial thinking, and conspiracy theories tend to spring up organically in any group of people when they are angry and scared. When applying Occam's Razor we must put aside that tendency, focus on factors that are known to be present in a given environment, and consider factors that are so obvious that they can easily be overlooked.
It is an established fact that there are coronavirus variants circulating in wild Chinese bat populations. SARS (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) were both coronavirus respiratory illnesses that are believed to have originated in bats. A coronavirus variant that was 96% similar to Covid19 was recently isolated in a Chinese province neighboring the Hubei province where the city of Wuhan is located. None of those claims are speculative. They are all backed up by existing science.
Bats frequently live in the rafters of old buildings, especially agricultural buildings where there are large numbers of insects for them to feed on. A Google search for the phrase "barn bat removal" returns over six million hits, including many articles which advise readers that bat removal is so difficult, that it's often best to just leave them in place as they help reduce insect populations.
Bats are mammals who sleep while hanging upside down from rafters, which means that as they are sleeping, they would create respiratory exhalations including aerosolized droplets that fall to ground level. These kinds of aerosolized respiratory droplets have already been identified as a key transmission vector for the Covid19 virus. It is entirely plausible that if a coronavirus is circulating in a bat population, and that bat population rests in the rafters of an agricultural building, that a farmer who uses that building during his work would inhale respiratory droplets that fall down from the bats living in the barn rafters, and could thereby be exposed to a virus like Covid19.
An outbreak of Covid19 occurred at a Farmer's Market in Wuhan China. It is entirely plausible that a farmer who had bats living in one of the buildings on his farm, could have loaded up his wares to take them to market, and during the time he was at the market, ended up spreading the Covid19 virus to other farmers and customers.
The idea that Covid19 originated from "gain of function" research in a Chinese virology lab is simply stupid. There is absolutely no reason for a government to fund the creation of a virus that has a mortality rate of around 2% when they already have abundant samples of the original SARS and MERS viruses which had a mortality rate of greater than 30%. Also, Covid19 had a disparate impact on the elderly, whereas weaponized viruses that are created for military purposes are more likely to be designed to mimic the Pandemic Influenza virus of 1918, which had an out-sized impact on young adults of prime military age.
Given such a basic theory of how Coronavirus originated, we may then start trying to prove that theory by capturing and testing bats that are living in rafters of old buildings in and around the city of Wuhan, slowly expanding in concentric circles until someone finally found a population of bats living in the rafters of an agricultural building in the surrounding Hubei prinvince which, when tested, were shown to carry the original "Covid19 - alpha variant" that was first identified in the city of Wuhan in December of 2019.
Conservatives hate such a simple explanation for several reasons. The first reason is that such a simple solution eliminates the potential for conspiracy theory mongering that the modern day Republican Party has encouraged among their base of supporters. The simple solution also does away with all the "Yellow peril" xenophobia that was so common in reports of the disease emerging from a Wuhan "wet market" where a variety of unfamiliar animals become protein for Asian dinner tables. The simpler solution also makes clear that such a scenario could happen right here in the US. Many American farmers have bats living in their barns, and many American farmers load up their trucks to take goods from their farms to Farmer's Markets. The simple solution offends the right wing propagandist by making conspiratorial thinking appear foolish, and by taking away the opportunity to apply a hyper-focus to the foreign nature of non-Western diets. Also, the simple solution provides an immediate option for trying to investigate the original source of the Covid19 virus, which could eliminate the potential for future speculations.
Image credit: cluster of bats in the eaves of a barn from the article "Bats pack a punch for pest control" https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=7074
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