source for highlighted study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300891620974755?journalCode=tmja

China also claims to have found a perfect match of the Wuhan strain in Italy predating the first case in Wuhan. I couldn't dig up the exact study so i didn't screenshot it here, but here's a link anyway for completeness.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3113444/coronavirus-italian-scientists-find-perfect-match-wuhan-strain

Even without that though, it's looking pretty likely that COVID-19 actually originated in italy.

edit: found the new study!

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33292923/

We describe the earliest evidence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in a patient in Italy, ≈3 months before Italy’s first reported COVID-19 case. These findings, in agreement with other evidence of early COVID-19 spread in Europe, advance the beginning of the outbreak to late autumn 2019

  • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
    1·
    4 years ago

    I still have hope that it came from the US, because nothing is real anymore, satire is reality and we all deserve a little treat

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]MA
    ·
    4 years ago

    Every time somebody dies from the Rona we call it "getting whacked" in the Family.

    • cilantrofellow [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      It’s anti-science to declare something scientists have said to be inviolably true. It’s a process not an institution.

    • mittens [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      meanwhile the covid19 subreddit just rolled with the possibility that it might've originated elsewhere. though admittedly, it was because it supported the iceberg theory which is now bunk (though it was a nice theory to be invested in)

    • lvysaur [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      probably originated in Southeast Asia. It explains the dearth of deaths, plus that region has the highest bat diversity.

      If it actually originated in wiggaland then I feel like westerners wouldn't be dropping dead by the bucketful

      • Magjee [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Stop fucking eating us ya jerks!

        Otherwise we will fuck up your whole life

        /$

      • cilantrofellow [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Just want to say it doesn’t need to be anywhere bats and pangolins coexist persay, just in any organism/cell where both coronaviruses infect. I know that difference is subtle but I think it’s meaningful to specify, particularly since these can be diseases optimized for one clade, but manage to exist suboptimally in others.

  • TheUrbanaSquirrel [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Ah yes, the "whoever smelted it delted it," approach to contagious disease. China didn't sit on their hands dealing with it, therefore it's their fault. Wasn't it also in the US before the first official case?

  • TheModerateTankie [any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    It was caught in China because they were actively looking for SARS type illness due to previous pandemics.

    I don't know about Italy, but If it started in the US it would have been completely out of control before anyone realized it wasn't just a bad flu season. The only reason early cases were caught at all is because someone was conducting a flu study and went "holy shit, maybe coronovirus is here?" and tested the samples. Most people in the US can't justify the expense of going to the doctor for what they think is a flu, and we are pressured to work while sick.

  • poppy_apocalypse [he/him, any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    It's like to children getting in a fight at school. Teacher sends them to detention and tells them they can go after writing an essay on why fighting is stupid. China sits down and starts writing. The US just cries and yells, "but he started it! but he started it!" We're approaching 300k deaths while China is at 87k cases and only 4,634 deaths. Virus reaching its peak and restrictions are weaker today than in March.