[credit_guy]

I read your link, and except for words, I see not explanation why the market hypothesis is more likely. Just "I thought that, and now I think this".

The rest of the article says that the reports were deemed by the WHO to be "inconclusive". And what else do you expect? Conclusive evidence for the lab-leak hypothesis should be hyper-ultra-uber strong, because its consequences could potentially be requests for trillions of dollars of reparations. Evidence for the market hypothesis doesn't need to be as strong, this alternative would make quite a lot of people quite happy, but for some reason no clear evidence was found.

In the article they claim the possibility for contagion via frozen food was deemed "possible". This is total BS. Covid is an airborne disease. We've all lived for more than 2 years with it, and most HN readers probably read for thousands of hours about Covid. The claim that you can get Covid from food is preposterous. Of course, if you intentionally want to get it, you can get it, so one cannot rule it out, but deeming this "possible" is clearly just based on politics. It should be deemed "possible, but highly improbable".

So, no, I don't see a plausible scenario where the wildlife is the source of the disease. I can see a lab worker contracting the virus in the lab, and then going to lunch to the market, and then the disease spreading from there. But not from wildlife, because there were no documented cases of live bats or live pangolins being sold in that market.

[igouy]

> … contagion via frozen food was deemed "possible"…

"The USDA and the FDA … the risk is exceedingly low for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans via food and food packaging."

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/covid-19....

[igouy]

> because there were no documented cases of live bats or live pangolins being sold in that market.

Was selling live bats or live pangolins legal?

[credit_guy]

I guess you are saying that because it was illegal, the Government couldn't find out if it happened. Something like Captain Renault in Casablanca being shocked that gambling was happening around there [1].

[1] https://noagenda.fandom.com/wiki/I%27m_shocked,_shocked_to_f...!

[igouy]

"The sale of wild animals without permits in China carries severe penalties involving steep fines and imprisonment. The tick study that documented the sale of illegal animals in the Huanan market observed, however, that the sellers were not too concerned about law enforcement, and that plainly illegal animals were openly sold. It is unclear whether any of the animal traders engaged in illegal wildlife commerce have been since found, fined or punished. The swift clear-out of the market may have been intended to protect them as well as the law-enforcement officers and local politicians who had looked the other way."

"The Contested Origin of SARS-CoV-2" 26 Nov 2021

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2021.2...

[igouy]

I assume "vendors were selling live mammals, including raccoon dogs, hog badgers, and red foxes, immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic" and that was illegal and — at various levels of city and regional government — well known to be happening.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

I guess "The animals on these farms (nearly 1 million) were rapidly released, sold, or killed in early 2020…" because those involved in the illegal trade did not wish to be held responsible for a repeat of SARS-CoV-1.