Viral
The Search for the Origin of Covid-19
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Viral
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Narrated by:
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Gavin Osborn
About this listen
Understanding how Covid-19 started is more important than we know for the future of humankind.
Determining whether the virus came from nature or from a lab will help us to safeguard against the next pandemic.
This disease will forever punctuate modern history. It has led to the deaths of millions, sickened hundreds of millions and affected the lives of almost every person on the planet. We now know that Covid is here to stay.
Genetic engineering expert Dr Alina Chan and renowned science writer Matt Ridley examine the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19, using their formidable skills to scrutinise arguments and rigorously analyse the sprawling data. Viral is a fascinating account that takes in pangolins, horseshoe bats, internet sleuths and misleading scientific papers. It details the evidence and investigates hypotheses for the virus origin, chief among them a potential laboratory leak or a natural spillover.
Science has made great strides over the last decades. Chan and Ridley give an insight into the proliferating pathogen research and virus hunting around the world. Whatever the source of the virus, the world needs to adopt new policies and strategies to prevent or mitigate future outbreaks.
Set in the caves and mineshafts, food markets and wildlife smugglers’ stores, laboratories and databases of China and elsewhere, Viral is a page-turner that reads like a detective novel and goes deeper into the deepest mystery of the day than any other work.
This is the book on the search for the origin of Covid-19.
©2021 Alina Chan and Matt Ridley (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
‘Spectacularly well informed on the origins . . . Balanced and fair-minded’ Richard Dawkins
‘A masterpiece’ Jeremy Hunt, MP
‘The result is a viral whodunnit that is sure to appeal to armchair detectives’ Mark Honigsbaum, the Observer
‘The book collates a series of circumstantial but damning points in favour of the lab-leak hypothesis. It opens with a cloak-and-dagger scene of a BBC reporter trying to reach a mine in Mojiang, a rural area in southwest China… The book has dozens of tantalising facts … The book, fairly, does not conclude that the lab leak hypothesis is definitely true, merely that it is highly possible, and I agree… I hope the questions that Chan and Ridley raise are answered more fully, one way or another’ Tom Chivers, The Times
Praise for Dr Alina Chan:
‘Both journalists and armchair detectives interested in the mystery of the coronavirus were discovering Chan as a kind of Holmes to our Watson. She crunched information at twice our speed, zeroing in on small details we’d overlooked, and became a go-to for anyone looking for spin-free explications of the latest science on Covid-19’ Rowan Jacobsen, Boston Magazine
‘Here was an actual scientist at America’s biggest gene centre who was explaining why the official story might be wrong’ Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review
Praise for Matt Ridley:
‘[Genome is] a dazzling work of popular science, offering clarity and inspiration’ Guardian
‘[How Innovation Works] ranges from the truly profound to the merely fascinating’ Steven Pinker
What listeners say about Viral
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 01-12-21
Compelling even for the lay person
Very clear and compelling documentary of the respiratory virus evolution from the death of Mojiang Miners in 2012 through to the current Pandemic. Pretty technical in places but allows a lay person to truly understand the subterfuge, delay and obfuscation around the publication of the 8 splinter SARS viruses that is pretty much a blueprint of COVID-19 today. Make your own mind up on the smoking gun.
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1 person found this helpful
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- PT
- 28-01-22
We'll balanced debate
I learnt a lot from this book, and found it well balanced. if you've anj interest in science I'd highly recommend it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- AmazonUser
- 05-02-23
Informative - not sensational
Scientific non-fiction such as this is bound to be tricky to pull off in an audio format, especially where there is a level of detail to convey. I found this audio book to be easy to follow as it weaves its way through a difficult topic. Contrary to some reviews of the book, I did not find this a sensationalist portrayal of conspiracy theories. Rather, it is an even-handed examination of the possible origins of Covid-19. In fact there is a chapter where the authors steel man the zoonotic (natural origins) hypothesis. I found this book informative enough in its explanation of the science to use it as a starting point to do further research and indeed as an introduction to the main players who appear in web casts and similar video panel debates. Highly recommended to anyone taking an interest in this topic.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mark
- 17-01-22
VITAL... A Must Read
Great book, well written and brimming with eye opening facts and data. They try to remain balanced but difficult in the face of overwhelming evidence
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Angela F
- 27-01-22
Informative!
extremely good, I don't believe it is written with bias but presents the known facts in a helpful timeline of the pandemic, good narrator voice
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- David
- 15-02-22
A great insight
A good book a little on the technical side. But doesn't stop you getting the gist. However it's a very good insight into 2020 to 2021 covid origin story.
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- Peter Gunn
- 21-06-24
a genuine analysis.
lots of facts hard to keep up with but the discussion by the end is sober, fair and sharp.
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- Judy Corstjens
- 22-06-22
Very detailed
Detail is probably good, but a non-scientist could find themselves a bit out of depth or bogged down. The structure of the book is to lay out ALL the evidence in the first 11 chapters and then in chapters 12 and 13 lay out, as in a court of law, the case for the two main hypotheses, a) spillover or b) lab leak. Spillover is the null hypothesis. We know that this sort of Sars virus comes originally from a bat (living in a cave in south China), and the 'natural' explanation is that at some point a human got close enough to an infected bat to catch the virus and then pass it on to other humans. This sort of passage has happened many times. The problem is that no-one has been able to map out this path, so far, after much searching, for Covid 19.
The other serious explanation, Lab leak, is a bit controversial (now that 11 million plus have died) but it is the alternative to a 'natural' spill-over. The idea would be that technicians futzing around with the virus to see what sort genetic mutation might gain them a bit of 'functionality', might let some of the material leak out of the lab, or infect themselves and then go shopping in town, and pass it on to a few fellow citizens. The evidence here is that there is a lab that specialises in bat viruses in Wuhan, they did some very secretive and downright dishonest manouvres after Septermber 2019, disembling, hiding and denying facts that subsequently emerged. The relevant bat-caves are 1000 km south of Wuhan, and some miners died there in 2012, the samples were stored in the Wuhan lab. Actually, just writing this out makes it feel that the authors we straining to be cautious, but the lab-based source seems (from this account) to be far the more likely explanation.
Nobody is suggesting that China did this on purpose. Indeed, the book points out that there is a sad irony here: the objective of the lab was to do reasearch that would protect the human race from potential natural pandemics...but they may have ended up actually causing, or at least precipitating, exactly what they were trying to avoid.
The fact that SO MANY PEOPLE have died makes this idea an absolute horror...I guess that is why the authors are so cautious to build the evidence and avoid passing absolute judgement themselves.
Narration. This is quite a difficult book to audio, to be frank. Lots of numbers, references etc.
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- Matt H
- 20-04-22
Compelling, balanced and quite frankly, heroic
Fascinating from start to finish. Let's hope that, despite China's continued cover up, we can learn from the mistakes that were made
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- kropotkin
- 23-12-21
important & fascinating
Excellent investigation highlighting state, professional and commercial cover-up. Brilliant narration. Internet sleuths are the heroes.
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