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Comment by dehrmann | Hacker News Reader

I assume practically every city in China has wet markets. I wonder how many cities have facilities that do virus research. It might actually be more than you'd assume; I have no idea what sort of research might happen at universities, You also have to weigh this with SARS Classic originating in China.

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A "wet market" is simply a market where you can buy meat, fish, and vegetables.

Every neighbourhood in every city in Asia has a wet market. Well other than Japan and Singapore, I guess. I live in Asia and there are two wet markets within walking distance of my house.

Wet markets are as omnipresent as convenience stores in America.

The entirety of China has two BSL-4 facilities, and Wuhan's is the older and larger of the two. (The other is in Harbin, northern China.)

"a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" presumes some form of uniqueness amongst potential other similar facilities

Presumably they specialised in coronaviruses because of the proximity to a bat population with coronaviruses, making sample gathering much easier? Are there other areas with significant coronavirus hosts? Are there other labs that specialise in coronaviruses to the same extent? The two seem linked to me, although I have no background in this area.

So we'd a priori expect coronavirus to originate in the area with coronavirus hosts, whether it was through the lab or the market...

It's been written everywhere that the horseshoe bats most likely to carry coronaviruses live in Yunnan province, more than 1000 km away. It's where the closest COVID relative was found as well.

Also while there are other species of bats near Wuhan, they are in hibernation in winter.

Is going out with butterfly nets to catch some bats a common routine activity among virologists? I'd say if not then the proximity of the research lab to where any bats can be found is not of much relevance - if needed, any bats can be obtained, but they are likely not the most definite factory for locating a major research center.

>SARS Classic

The remakes are always worse.

This one's #3. MERS (#2) was the deadliest of all, though it didn't spread so well.

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