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A page dedicated to zoonotic theories seemed neccessary to give attention to the full breadth and depth of the subject. This aims at a deeper level of detail, which more general articles like SARS-CoV-2 and Origin of Covid-19 can refer to in WP:SUMMARY style. This should especially be an improvement on the situation where the COVID-19 lab leak theory is the only article with scope to discuss the evidence for zoonosis in detail. This article is carried almost entirely by scientific peer-reviewed journals. Significant non-scientific viewpoints have been raised in a brief addendum. This contrasts with most other articles in the topic area, where WP:MEDPOP and even less qualified sources have been relied on for core facts and framing. I hope that this article will serve as a positive example for good practices around WP:NPOV, WP:MEDASSESS, and WP:DESCF throughout the COVID-19 topic area and open scientific questions in general. Sennalen ( talk) 18:24, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
This article does not look to me to be a properly executed WP:CFORK and instead seems to be closer to a WP:POVFORK. I encourage discussion of the issues outlined here and at the relevant thread on WP:FTN to address this matter. I will refrain from posting AfD until this is worked out, but that is another option, of course. jps ( talk) 16:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
This article has been nominated at Articles for Deletion. Interested editors may participate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zoonotic origins of COVID-19. TarnishedPath talk 09:20, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm open to revisions, but there are two considerations that should take overriding priority:
Sennalen ( talk) 20:03, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
A review of sources.
|
---|
|
A 50-year time frame for a LCA analysis for a bat virus and the COVID-19 virus is manifestly not the same as "zoonotic progenitor". That you are pretending it is makes me fairly amazed. WP:CIR is a standard we require for writing. This is not evident from your argument. jps ( talk) 18:41, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't know how to be any more clear. You can ask at the Reference Desk, I suppose, if you are still confused. jps ( talk) 20:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
So the first part of the first sentence is SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis
. But when I read, for example,
this editorial published March 2023 in the
Journal of Virology, it says stuff like this:
Two major hypotheses regarding the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have been debated: a direct zoonotic origin and the introduction of the virus into humans from a laboratory
unequivocally ruling in or out the zoonotic explanation is not possible since the evidence will always depend on certain probabilities, and certainty is impossible without knowledge of the initial events.
the lab leak- and zoonotic-origin explanations are not equally probable, and the available evidence favors the latter.
The best existing scientific evidence supports a direct zoonotic origin.
At no point does it say anything with anywhere near the level of certainty implied by SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis
, and I would be very surprised if it did, given the current state of knowledge. Finally, I would like to assert, for the record, that neither myself nor the Journal of Virology hold an antiscience, post-modernist POV that, like, nothing can really ever be known, dude.
Tewdar
14:52, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
solid sourcing(MEDRS, presumably) that we can summarize into Wikivoice as saying, without equivocation or qualification (for such is the lead), that
SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis, then present them, please. Tewdar 15:38, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
As for the vast majority of human viruses, the most parsimonious explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic event.Note that no such nuance is used for
human coronavirus-OC43 (HCoV-OC43), human coronavirus-HKU1 (HCoV-HKU1), human coronavirus-229E (HCoV-229E), and human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63)which
have zoonotic origins, according to the same review. Tewdar 16:12, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
these lineages were most probably the result of at least two separate cross-species transmission events into humans[...]
The most probable explanation for the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into humans involves zoonotic jumps from as-yet-undetermined, intermediate host animals at the Huanan market. I mean, I don't really give a toss and probably won't be making any more comments on this subject. But if it were down to me, I don't think I would be summarising the current state of knowledge quite like the first sentence of this article does. Tewdar 16:44, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
most likely was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets, that is actually incorrect in your view, and should be changed to say that SARS-CoV-2
was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets? Tewdar 09:10, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
SARS-CoV-2 [...] was first introduced to humans through zoonosis, whereas the parent Origin of COVID-19 article says SARS-CoV-2
most likely was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets(emphasis added). Do you see how those two statements differ? One says 'was'. The other says 'most likely was'. My suspicion is that if you changed 'most likely was' to 'was' in that other article, one of the 163 page watchers would revert the change. Tewdar 09:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets, in line with the Zoonotic origins article, or not? Alternatively, since according to you
there is no contradiction, this article could be changed to
SARS-CoV-2 [...] was most likely first introduced to humans through zoonosis, and would apparently have the same meaning as the current lede. Tewdar 10:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The scientific consensus is that the virus is most likely of a zoonotic origin, from bats or another closely related mammal, without any possible ambiguity that the 'most likely' might here refer to the actual animal source, unless you want to say that the comma should be removed. Tewdar 11:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The scientific consensus is that the virus is of a zoonotic originwould be quite enough qualification to shut me up. Tewdar 12:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Zoonosis is an ambiguous term. In colloquial usage, zoonosis is the opposite of lab-leak. But in more technical sources, zoonosis just refers to having a natural ancestor. For example, the SAGO report asserts a zoonotic origin while acknowledging the possibility of a research-related spillover.
This matters because everybody agrees that SARS-CoV-2 originated with a bat virus and therefore had a zoonotic origin at some point. Yet the proximal origin is highly controversial. Confusion around the definition of zoonosis muddies the waters.
It would be best if Wikipedia divided the possible origins by spillover location: natural, market, or research-related. But if this article is named for zoonosis, the ambiguous meaning of zoonosis should be clarified in the lede. - Palpable ( talk) 21:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
[19] Yikes. Focusing this much on one source is absurd. Tobias is a self-admitted FOIA advocate, but it seems to me that his bias is apparent from his various arguments. While better than some of the more rabid Lab Leak conspiracy theorists in terms of care of analysis, there is still something reminiscent of Climategate going on here where people are deliberately misinterpreting e-mails between scientists as somehow indicative of a conspiracy. Basically the origin point of a conspiracy theory. The early concerns over certain genomic features have been conclusively put to bed, and this entire thing is a distraction from the subject of this article anyway. Yikes! jps ( talk) 12:45, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
There is a request for enforcement regarding editor behavior concerning this page and COVID-19 origins at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#ජපස Sennalen ( talk) 22:11, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
The more I look at this article, the more it appears to be an attempt to write a journal-esque review article based on selected primary literature. Articles should be based on secondary sources and WP:BMI in particular should normally rely on WP:MEDRS. A heavy trim is in order (and is ongoing). Bon courage ( talk) 08:28, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
[20] I think this section was serving mostly as a WP:COATrack for ongoing questions and controversies surrounding the politicization of scientific studies regarding COVID-19 origins. But, crucially, none of the sources really had anything to say about the investigation of zoonotic origins directly. The "anywhere but here" editorial from Science is interesting and relevant to other articles, but not this one. Our focus needs to be on zoonotic origins, not on how geopolitics filters out certain discourse.
Just about the only two points which were even vaguely related were the questions about close relatives of the virus found in wildlife (poorly cited paper criticized in the "anywhere but here" editorial as an object lesson) and the point that the wet market provenance has contributed to certain racist/racialized backlash. I think those points might be integrated in other sections of the article, but they are still somewhat tangential so I think there is no great loss if they are not discussed, necessarily.
Anyway, that's that.
jps ( talk) 13:40, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
ජපස, you seem to have misunderstood some aspects of Pekar (2022). As the
"Selection" section of the undecimated version of the article explains, lineages S and L are defined by particular SNVs. They were well-known before Pekar (2022). There is not a scientific consensus, but the more prevalent view is that these SNVs are host adaptations acquired in humans. Pekar (2022) makes the novel claim that they were acquired before crossing the species barrier, and that it was crossed twice separately. Pekar is primary for those claims, and as they say in the paper, their methods were Phylodynamic rooting methods, coupled with epidemic simulations
. None of it has any bearing on whether a spillover happened or whether SARS-CoV-2 was ever in an animal - all of that is assumed.
Sennalen (
talk)
15:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Answering these questions requires determining the ancestral haplotype, the genomic sequence characteristics of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) at the root of the SARS-CoV-2 phylogeny. In this study, we combined genomic and epidemiological data from early in the COVID-19 pandemic with phylodynamic models and epidemic simulations. We eliminated many of the haplotypes previously suggested as the MRCA of SARS-CoV-2 and show that the pandemic most likely began with at least two separate zoonotic transmissions starting in November 2019.[21]
a nonreversible, random-effects substitution process model in a Bayesian phylodynamic framework that simultaneously reconstructs the underlying coalescent processes and the sequence of the MRCA of the SARS-CoV-2 phylogeny
If lineages A and B arose from separate introductions, then the MRCA of SARS-CoV-2 was not in humans
We queried the GISAID database (56), GenBank, and National Genomics Data Center of the China National Center for Bioinformatics (CNCB) for complete high-coverage SARS-CoV-2 genomes collected by 14 February 2020, resulting in a dataset of 787 taxa belonging to lineages A and B and 20 taxa with C/C or T/T haplotypes.. I think it's fair to gloss that as "circulating human strains".
You seem to be under the misapprehension that there is a spectrum of opinion to fact when it comes to empirical claims. I submit that this is a mistake in consideration of genre. A paper in Nature (and, to a lesser extent, Science) is speculative by nature (ha!) and will couch its conclusions as such. The authors aren't arguing that it is their opinion that there were two spillover events. The authors are arguing that there is evidence that there were two spillover events. They may be mistaken in that analysis which is why WP:MEDRS is so very allergic to primary sources. But what they are not doing is writing an op-ed about what they think is going on in the world. I understand that this topic has fallen victim from time-to-time to this kind of game playing (c.f. Great Barrington declaration), but peer-reviewed published papers are either worthy of inclusion and citation with their points plainly asserted or they are worthy of exclusion. There is no middle ground. I fear that you may have adopted an editorial bent from political and cultural topics where opinions are the currency of a lot of the sources. That is not the case here. jps ( talk) 19:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Between case Wuhan-1 and a bat 50 years ago, there is a missing gap.Saying that there was a MRCA between RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 40 or 50 years ago is not the same thing as identifying a bat 50 years ago. What source talks about a missing gap? jps ( talk) 20:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Between case Wuhan-1 and a bat 50 years ago, there is a missing gap.. You must provide the sources to back it up. jps ( talk) 21:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
This response indicates your predilections towards this topic, and I find them disconfirming. None of those sources should be used as organizational principles to preference a kind of uncertainty about the origin of COVID-19. There is a linear model: This coronavirus, like other coronaviruses, is zoonotic in origin. It was first detected in Hubei, its closest relatives are in bats. That is the primary focus. That is what the vast majority of WP:MEDRS sources are going to lead us to writing. Details beyond this with guesses about how many years progenitors were circulating undetected are secondary to the main points. And yet you have consistently tried to push the details as the main point. I don't think this is workable in a collaborative sense. You have either been pushed into a bizarre editorial outlook by your overinvolvement in Lab Leak Theory discussions or there is some other agenda, but what I do not see is a fealty to the best sources and basic discourse on this topic. This is a common problem in areas where we see WP:PROFRINGE advocacy and whether you are doing it intentionally or not, that is what I am seeing here. jps ( talk) 12:30, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Details beyond this with guesses about how many years progenitors were circulating undetected are secondary to the main points.That would be true in the setting of a main Covid-19 Origin article, which is not the article I set out to write. This article was supposed to be a detail article, where the primary focus is the state of knowledge about what happened prior to December, 2019. Just because it's not an article you would have written doesn't mean I have nefarious motives. Sennalen ( talk) 13:20, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I think everyone agrees Origin of Covid-19 should be better. I didn't write this to fulfill that mission. I thought that would have been too bold - but it seems like no one is going to trust any attempt at a spinout anyway unless it's a package deal with the parent. I could remix this material into something built from the start to be a draft for the parent. I trust that if I do that, we can talk about any concerns people have with weight or secondary sources without going ham deleting everything? Sennalen ( talk) 03:50, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Zoonotic origins of COVID-19 article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to
COVID-19, broadly construed, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 9 March 2024. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
![]() | This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
A page dedicated to zoonotic theories seemed neccessary to give attention to the full breadth and depth of the subject. This aims at a deeper level of detail, which more general articles like SARS-CoV-2 and Origin of Covid-19 can refer to in WP:SUMMARY style. This should especially be an improvement on the situation where the COVID-19 lab leak theory is the only article with scope to discuss the evidence for zoonosis in detail. This article is carried almost entirely by scientific peer-reviewed journals. Significant non-scientific viewpoints have been raised in a brief addendum. This contrasts with most other articles in the topic area, where WP:MEDPOP and even less qualified sources have been relied on for core facts and framing. I hope that this article will serve as a positive example for good practices around WP:NPOV, WP:MEDASSESS, and WP:DESCF throughout the COVID-19 topic area and open scientific questions in general. Sennalen ( talk) 18:24, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
This article does not look to me to be a properly executed WP:CFORK and instead seems to be closer to a WP:POVFORK. I encourage discussion of the issues outlined here and at the relevant thread on WP:FTN to address this matter. I will refrain from posting AfD until this is worked out, but that is another option, of course. jps ( talk) 16:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
This article has been nominated at Articles for Deletion. Interested editors may participate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zoonotic origins of COVID-19. TarnishedPath talk 09:20, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm open to revisions, but there are two considerations that should take overriding priority:
Sennalen ( talk) 20:03, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
A review of sources.
|
---|
|
A 50-year time frame for a LCA analysis for a bat virus and the COVID-19 virus is manifestly not the same as "zoonotic progenitor". That you are pretending it is makes me fairly amazed. WP:CIR is a standard we require for writing. This is not evident from your argument. jps ( talk) 18:41, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't know how to be any more clear. You can ask at the Reference Desk, I suppose, if you are still confused. jps ( talk) 20:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
So the first part of the first sentence is SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis
. But when I read, for example,
this editorial published March 2023 in the
Journal of Virology, it says stuff like this:
Two major hypotheses regarding the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have been debated: a direct zoonotic origin and the introduction of the virus into humans from a laboratory
unequivocally ruling in or out the zoonotic explanation is not possible since the evidence will always depend on certain probabilities, and certainty is impossible without knowledge of the initial events.
the lab leak- and zoonotic-origin explanations are not equally probable, and the available evidence favors the latter.
The best existing scientific evidence supports a direct zoonotic origin.
At no point does it say anything with anywhere near the level of certainty implied by SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis
, and I would be very surprised if it did, given the current state of knowledge. Finally, I would like to assert, for the record, that neither myself nor the Journal of Virology hold an antiscience, post-modernist POV that, like, nothing can really ever be known, dude.
Tewdar
14:52, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
solid sourcing(MEDRS, presumably) that we can summarize into Wikivoice as saying, without equivocation or qualification (for such is the lead), that
SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis, then present them, please. Tewdar 15:38, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
As for the vast majority of human viruses, the most parsimonious explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic event.Note that no such nuance is used for
human coronavirus-OC43 (HCoV-OC43), human coronavirus-HKU1 (HCoV-HKU1), human coronavirus-229E (HCoV-229E), and human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63)which
have zoonotic origins, according to the same review. Tewdar 16:12, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
these lineages were most probably the result of at least two separate cross-species transmission events into humans[...]
The most probable explanation for the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into humans involves zoonotic jumps from as-yet-undetermined, intermediate host animals at the Huanan market. I mean, I don't really give a toss and probably won't be making any more comments on this subject. But if it were down to me, I don't think I would be summarising the current state of knowledge quite like the first sentence of this article does. Tewdar 16:44, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
most likely was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets, that is actually incorrect in your view, and should be changed to say that SARS-CoV-2
was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets? Tewdar 09:10, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
SARS-CoV-2 [...] was first introduced to humans through zoonosis, whereas the parent Origin of COVID-19 article says SARS-CoV-2
most likely was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets(emphasis added). Do you see how those two statements differ? One says 'was'. The other says 'most likely was'. My suspicion is that if you changed 'most likely was' to 'was' in that other article, one of the 163 page watchers would revert the change. Tewdar 09:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature or during wildlife trade such as that in food markets, in line with the Zoonotic origins article, or not? Alternatively, since according to you
there is no contradiction, this article could be changed to
SARS-CoV-2 [...] was most likely first introduced to humans through zoonosis, and would apparently have the same meaning as the current lede. Tewdar 10:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The scientific consensus is that the virus is most likely of a zoonotic origin, from bats or another closely related mammal, without any possible ambiguity that the 'most likely' might here refer to the actual animal source, unless you want to say that the comma should be removed. Tewdar 11:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The scientific consensus is that the virus is of a zoonotic originwould be quite enough qualification to shut me up. Tewdar 12:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Zoonosis is an ambiguous term. In colloquial usage, zoonosis is the opposite of lab-leak. But in more technical sources, zoonosis just refers to having a natural ancestor. For example, the SAGO report asserts a zoonotic origin while acknowledging the possibility of a research-related spillover.
This matters because everybody agrees that SARS-CoV-2 originated with a bat virus and therefore had a zoonotic origin at some point. Yet the proximal origin is highly controversial. Confusion around the definition of zoonosis muddies the waters.
It would be best if Wikipedia divided the possible origins by spillover location: natural, market, or research-related. But if this article is named for zoonosis, the ambiguous meaning of zoonosis should be clarified in the lede. - Palpable ( talk) 21:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
[19] Yikes. Focusing this much on one source is absurd. Tobias is a self-admitted FOIA advocate, but it seems to me that his bias is apparent from his various arguments. While better than some of the more rabid Lab Leak conspiracy theorists in terms of care of analysis, there is still something reminiscent of Climategate going on here where people are deliberately misinterpreting e-mails between scientists as somehow indicative of a conspiracy. Basically the origin point of a conspiracy theory. The early concerns over certain genomic features have been conclusively put to bed, and this entire thing is a distraction from the subject of this article anyway. Yikes! jps ( talk) 12:45, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
There is a request for enforcement regarding editor behavior concerning this page and COVID-19 origins at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#ජපස Sennalen ( talk) 22:11, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
The more I look at this article, the more it appears to be an attempt to write a journal-esque review article based on selected primary literature. Articles should be based on secondary sources and WP:BMI in particular should normally rely on WP:MEDRS. A heavy trim is in order (and is ongoing). Bon courage ( talk) 08:28, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
[20] I think this section was serving mostly as a WP:COATrack for ongoing questions and controversies surrounding the politicization of scientific studies regarding COVID-19 origins. But, crucially, none of the sources really had anything to say about the investigation of zoonotic origins directly. The "anywhere but here" editorial from Science is interesting and relevant to other articles, but not this one. Our focus needs to be on zoonotic origins, not on how geopolitics filters out certain discourse.
Just about the only two points which were even vaguely related were the questions about close relatives of the virus found in wildlife (poorly cited paper criticized in the "anywhere but here" editorial as an object lesson) and the point that the wet market provenance has contributed to certain racist/racialized backlash. I think those points might be integrated in other sections of the article, but they are still somewhat tangential so I think there is no great loss if they are not discussed, necessarily.
Anyway, that's that.
jps ( talk) 13:40, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
ජපස, you seem to have misunderstood some aspects of Pekar (2022). As the
"Selection" section of the undecimated version of the article explains, lineages S and L are defined by particular SNVs. They were well-known before Pekar (2022). There is not a scientific consensus, but the more prevalent view is that these SNVs are host adaptations acquired in humans. Pekar (2022) makes the novel claim that they were acquired before crossing the species barrier, and that it was crossed twice separately. Pekar is primary for those claims, and as they say in the paper, their methods were Phylodynamic rooting methods, coupled with epidemic simulations
. None of it has any bearing on whether a spillover happened or whether SARS-CoV-2 was ever in an animal - all of that is assumed.
Sennalen (
talk)
15:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Answering these questions requires determining the ancestral haplotype, the genomic sequence characteristics of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) at the root of the SARS-CoV-2 phylogeny. In this study, we combined genomic and epidemiological data from early in the COVID-19 pandemic with phylodynamic models and epidemic simulations. We eliminated many of the haplotypes previously suggested as the MRCA of SARS-CoV-2 and show that the pandemic most likely began with at least two separate zoonotic transmissions starting in November 2019.[21]
a nonreversible, random-effects substitution process model in a Bayesian phylodynamic framework that simultaneously reconstructs the underlying coalescent processes and the sequence of the MRCA of the SARS-CoV-2 phylogeny
If lineages A and B arose from separate introductions, then the MRCA of SARS-CoV-2 was not in humans
We queried the GISAID database (56), GenBank, and National Genomics Data Center of the China National Center for Bioinformatics (CNCB) for complete high-coverage SARS-CoV-2 genomes collected by 14 February 2020, resulting in a dataset of 787 taxa belonging to lineages A and B and 20 taxa with C/C or T/T haplotypes.. I think it's fair to gloss that as "circulating human strains".
You seem to be under the misapprehension that there is a spectrum of opinion to fact when it comes to empirical claims. I submit that this is a mistake in consideration of genre. A paper in Nature (and, to a lesser extent, Science) is speculative by nature (ha!) and will couch its conclusions as such. The authors aren't arguing that it is their opinion that there were two spillover events. The authors are arguing that there is evidence that there were two spillover events. They may be mistaken in that analysis which is why WP:MEDRS is so very allergic to primary sources. But what they are not doing is writing an op-ed about what they think is going on in the world. I understand that this topic has fallen victim from time-to-time to this kind of game playing (c.f. Great Barrington declaration), but peer-reviewed published papers are either worthy of inclusion and citation with their points plainly asserted or they are worthy of exclusion. There is no middle ground. I fear that you may have adopted an editorial bent from political and cultural topics where opinions are the currency of a lot of the sources. That is not the case here. jps ( talk) 19:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Between case Wuhan-1 and a bat 50 years ago, there is a missing gap.Saying that there was a MRCA between RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 40 or 50 years ago is not the same thing as identifying a bat 50 years ago. What source talks about a missing gap? jps ( talk) 20:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Between case Wuhan-1 and a bat 50 years ago, there is a missing gap.. You must provide the sources to back it up. jps ( talk) 21:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
This response indicates your predilections towards this topic, and I find them disconfirming. None of those sources should be used as organizational principles to preference a kind of uncertainty about the origin of COVID-19. There is a linear model: This coronavirus, like other coronaviruses, is zoonotic in origin. It was first detected in Hubei, its closest relatives are in bats. That is the primary focus. That is what the vast majority of WP:MEDRS sources are going to lead us to writing. Details beyond this with guesses about how many years progenitors were circulating undetected are secondary to the main points. And yet you have consistently tried to push the details as the main point. I don't think this is workable in a collaborative sense. You have either been pushed into a bizarre editorial outlook by your overinvolvement in Lab Leak Theory discussions or there is some other agenda, but what I do not see is a fealty to the best sources and basic discourse on this topic. This is a common problem in areas where we see WP:PROFRINGE advocacy and whether you are doing it intentionally or not, that is what I am seeing here. jps ( talk) 12:30, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Details beyond this with guesses about how many years progenitors were circulating undetected are secondary to the main points.That would be true in the setting of a main Covid-19 Origin article, which is not the article I set out to write. This article was supposed to be a detail article, where the primary focus is the state of knowledge about what happened prior to December, 2019. Just because it's not an article you would have written doesn't mean I have nefarious motives. Sennalen ( talk) 13:20, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I think everyone agrees Origin of Covid-19 should be better. I didn't write this to fulfill that mission. I thought that would have been too bold - but it seems like no one is going to trust any attempt at a spinout anyway unless it's a package deal with the parent. I could remix this material into something built from the start to be a draft for the parent. I trust that if I do that, we can talk about any concerns people have with weight or secondary sources without going ham deleting everything? Sennalen ( talk) 03:50, 2 December 2023 (UTC)