Get Serious!

"Science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom" Isaac Asimov. 

In my squandered youth, I avidly consumed the books of Erich von Däniken. Before the Internet era put all conspiracy theories on steroids, von Däniken was the best we could get.

His idea of humans seeded from intergalactic travellers enthralled me until Charles Darwin took me in a different direction. 

These days the nut-jobs are having fun as Covid-19 is shoe-horned into every conspiracy, prejudice and fantasy. This feeding frenzy is drawing in the usual crowd of suspects. Of course, leading the pack is the high priest of the genre, Mr David Icke.

To the uninitiated, Mr Icke believes we are all controlled by a secret society of lizard mutants led by HRH Queen Elizabeth. Icke is busy getting his face on every willing YouTube channel to push his ideas.

It's the usual nonsense. We are the victims of a 'one per cent' conspiracy to enslave the majority, with Covid-19 an agent of control and aided in its propagation by 5G networks. 

Mr Icke polished his reputation with a few successes. He predicted paedophiles in the upper echelons of UK society well before the police bothered to investigate.

At times Icke sounds plausible until you scratch the surface to reveal the lack of substantiation or rationality. At other times, he's bat-shit crazy.

Despite this, Icke has carved out a niche that earned him an estimated £2M from 20 books and lecture tours. Anyway, he's now facing possible sanctions after attacks on 5G facilities. 

In other places, people harness Covid-19 to existing prejudices. In India, the blame falls on Muslims for the spread after attending religious ceremonies. While Iran is claiming Covid-19 is a Zionist-plot with Israel holding a secret vaccine.

Look anywhere in the world, and I guarantee you'll find someone blaming the 'other'. 

Above all, it's inevitable that Covid-19 is now a weapon in the struggle between nations. Folks in the US accused China of manufacturing the virus and then leaking it.

China fires back with equally unproven claims that the US military brought the virus to Wuhan during a sporting contest in Autumn 2019. Neither story holds up to serious examination or scientific examination. 

That's the beauty of science; verifiable evidence and peer review. I'd argue that science is the most honest of disciplines because  scientists welcome challenges, share their testimony and seek peer affirmation.

The integrity of that process is profound. None of the YouTube pundits and charlatans making mouth-watering claims begins to jump the first hurdle of scientific integrity. 

It's fortunate that undistracted by this social media frenzy and the politics, scientists are toiling away on Covid-19. And it's remarkable that their cooperation jumps over the political boundaries.  

They don't tend to rush to make headlines, nor do they speak in the brash language of absolute certainty. Instead, in moderate tones, they'll present their findings as open to challenge.

First, let's be clear, there is nothing to suggest from reliable scientific sources that Covid-19 came from a lab. When humans tamper with a virus, we tend to leave our mark. That signature is not there on Covid-19.

​As far as the scientists can tell, the evidence points to the infection transferring from either bats or pangolins. 

Cambridge University, in conjunction with German scientists, has tracked the spread of the virus using a genetic footprint tool. This technique proved potent in mapping the migration of humans from Africa, allowing us to understand our evolution.

As the scientists get a clearer picture of Covid-19's spread, the situation is far more complicated than first thought.

For starters, Covid-19 comes in three distinct flavours that appear to impact distinct cohorts of people in different ways. What follows is a simplification of the current thinking. 

Based on samples from Wuhan, the scientists identified Covid-19 Type A was mostly present in people from America and Australia. Yet, Type A was somewhat absent from Wuhan's Chinese population. Instead, these folks carried predominately Covid-19 Type B. 

Type B didn't spread outside the Asia region because it appears the wider population has a degree of herd immunity. But, Type B evolved into Covid-19 Type C, which surfaced in France, Italy, Sweden and the UK. 

To add to the confusion, Type C is absent from the Mainland Chinese population yet found in Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. Whether large non-Chinese communities in these places acted as a reservoir remains unclear.

The genetic spread of the virus points to the outbreak starting (the founding event) in Wuhan between September and December 2019. As the virus moved out, and evolved, clusters from Germany and Singapore seeded the events in Italy. 

These findings will no doubt undergo further verification and assessment. In time, as more data arrives, we should be able to fully track the spread and evolution of the virus, allowing better interdiction. 

Then, this morning, I see comments in the SCMP misreading or misinterpreting this research to suggest that the virus had US origins. Wrong.

Eventually, the science will refute the nonsense spread on social media and elsewhere, albeit by then much damage may be done. 

After all, a good number of people already believe that Covid-19 is the product of military experimentation. And once these beliefs take hold, dislodging them is gruelling. David Icke is proof of how gullible people can be.