
Millionaire journalist and former evangelical preacher Sam Eckert is offering $1.7 million to anyone who can prove that the Wuhan coronavirus can cause disease.
It should be noted that it is not the existence of the virus that is in doubt, but that it causes death to those who are infected with it.
What this means is that Eckert is specifically asking for proof based on the isolation of the virus according to Koch’s postulates. This set of principles was derived from German physician Robert Koch’s Nobel Prize-winning work on tuberculosis in 1905.
Italian journalist Cesare Sacchetti added that to date, nobody has been able to win Eckert’s challenge, reiterating that the virus does not meet classical requirements that have been established by Koch.
Understanding Koch’s postulates
The four basic postulates are as follows:
The microorganism must be found in diseased individuals, but not healthy ones.
The microorganism must be isolated from the host with the disease and grown in pure culture.
Inoculation of a healthy individual with the microorganism will result in the reproduction of the disease.
The microorganism must be recoverable from the infected individual and should match the original microorganism.