Covid Origins Similar To Past Animal Market-Associated Outbreaks: Study

Wuhan is the largest city in central China with multiple animal markets and is a major hub for travel and commerce, well connected to other areas both within China and internationally, the authors said.

Early Covid-19 cases traced to markets in Wuhan, China, mirror the initial spread of SARS 17 years earlier, scientists said in a paper that concludes that an animal contagion is the most likely explanation for the pandemic's genesis. The epidemiological history of SARS-CoV-2 is comparable to previous animal market-associated outbreaks of coronaviruses and offers a simple route for human exposure, Edward Holmes, Andrew Rambaut and 19 other researchers said Wednesday in a review of the scientific evidence pertaining to the pandemic's origins. The paper was released Wednesday ahead of peer-review, and is being prepared for submission to a journal for publication, one of the authors said. It gives a detailed explanation for SARS-CoV-2's genetic signatures, early epidemiology and research undertaken at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Debate about Covid's emergence has coalesced around two competing ideas: a laboratory escape or a spillover from animals. The authors, who also include Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty and Wellcome Trust Director Jeremy Farrar, said there is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has a laboratory origin, and the suspicion stems from the coincidence that the pandemic virus was first detected in a city that houses the institute's maximum biosafety lab that studies coronaviruses and deadly diseases, such as Ebola.