ArticlemBio2021
Can Science Help Resolve the Controversy on the Origins of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?
Article in mBio, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis to explain unknown causes of the origins of SARS-COV-2.Environmental research · 2022Pooled it
- The harms of promoting the lab leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 origins without evidence.Journal of virology · 2024Article
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- Virology under the Microscope-a Call for Rational Discourse.Journal of virology · 2023Article
- Appearance and re-appearance of zoonotic disease during the pandemic period: long-term monitoring and analysis of zoonosis is crucial to confirm the animal origin of SARS-CoV-2 and monkeypox virus.The veterinary quarterly · 2022Article
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- Cross-sectional genomic perspective of epidemic waves of SARS-CoV-2: A pan India study.Virus research · 2022Article
- An Opinion on How Nanobiotechnology is Assisting Humankind to Overcome the Coronavirus Disease 2019.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The origins of the calamitous SARS-CoV-2 pandemic are now the subject of vigorous discussion and debate between two competing hypotheses for how it entered the human population: (i) direct infection from a feral source, likely a bat and possibly with an intermediate mammalian host, and (ii) a lab accident whereby bat isolates infected a researcher, who then passed it to others. Here, we ask whether the tools of science can help resolve the origins question and conclude that while such studies can provide important information, these are unlikely to provide a definitive answer. Currently available data combined with historical precedent from other outbreaks and viewed through the prism of Occam's razor favor the feral source hypothesis, but science can provide only probabilities, not certainty.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.