The True Origins of the Virus
Prognosis: Misconception
Bloomberg
4.1 • 838 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2020
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Internet has been teeming with theories about the origin of the coronavirus. Scientists have been saying for more than three months that it most likely originated in a species of bat found in the south of China, and then managed to somehow jump into people. But alternative explanations have been floated. United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly blamed China, and specifically a laboratory in Wuhan that was researching dangerous viruses. Jason Gale talked to a World Health Organization scientist to tease out the most plausible explanation for where the virus came from.
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| 0:33.5 | Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day 69 since coronavirus was declared a global |
| 0:41.3 | pandemic. Our main story? Scientists have determined that the virus first showed up in bats in |
| 0:48.9 | southern China. But just how it jumped from bats to humans isn't yet clear. |
| 0:55.7 | That uncertainty has allowed conspiracy theories to bubble up. |
| 1:00.6 | Some of them promoted at the highest levels of government. |
| 1:05.3 | But first, here's what happened today. |
| 1:25.0 | U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw altogether from the World Health Organization. |
| 1:29.3 | If he made good on the threat, it would leave Chinese leader Xi Jinping as leader of the global fight against the pandemic. Trump posted a four-page letter |
| 1:36.6 | detailing his grievances with the WHO to Twitter late last night. In the letter, he called on the group |
| 1:43.5 | to demonstrate independence from China. |
| 1:47.3 | He gave no other details about the reforms he was seeking or what specific changes might unlock |
| 1:53.8 | funding. Researchers from the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are finding |
| 2:00.2 | evidence that even though |
| 2:01.9 | some patients have tested positive for the coronavirus after recovering, those people aren't |
| 2:07.8 | capable of transmitting the infection. That's a positive sign for regions looking to open up |
| 2:14.1 | as more patients recover. It suggests those who have recovered from COVID-19 |
| 2:19.3 | present no risk of spreading the coronavirus. Finally, the U.S. and Canada will keep their |
| 2:27.9 | borders shut to non-essential travel for another month. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Donald Trump announced the extension |
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