L’animal origin of the Covid-19 pandemic is now almost certain. Two new studies, published on Tuesday July 26 in the journal Science, establish that the virus has begun to circulate in the market of the city of Wuhan, thus pointing to an animal origin. The first study is a geographical analysis showing that the first cases detected in December 2019 were concentrated around the market. The second is a genomic analysis of the virus from the first cases, showing that the virus is very unlikely to have circulated widely in humans before November 2019.
One of the authors of these studies, Michael Worobey, a virologist at the University of Arizona, had signed a letter in 2021 calling for serious consideration of the hypothesis of a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan. But the data analyzed since “has made me evolve, to the point that today I also think that it is simply not plausible that the virus was introduced in any way other than through trade of animals at the Wuhan market,” he said at a press conference.
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Kristian Andersen, of the Scripps Research Institute and also a co-author of these studies, for his part declared: “Have we disproved the theory of the laboratory leak? No. Can we do it one day? No. But I think it’s important to understand that there are possible scenarios, and probable ones. And that possible does mean […] Read more
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