AI Summary
The article discusses new research supporting the zoonotic origin of COVID-19, detailing an analysis of wildlife species present at the market where the virus likely originated. The study utilizes metatranscriptomic data and viral genomes from early COVID-19 patients to conclude that infected animals introduced to the market sparked the pandemic in late 2019. This research, published in the journal Cell, strengthens the existing evidence pointing towards the same scenario.
A new international collaborative study provides a list of the wildlife species present at the market from which SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, most likely arose in late 2019. The study is based on a new analysis of metatranscriptomic data released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data come from more than 800 samples collected in and around the Huanan Seafood Wholesale market beginning on January 1, 2020, and from viral genomes reported from early COVID-19 patients. The research appears September 19 in the journal Cell.
“This is one of the most important datasets that exists on the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says co-corresponding author Florence Débarre of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). “We’re extremely grateful that the data exist and were shared.”
This paper adds another layer to the accumulating evidence that all points to the same scenario: that infected animals were introduced into the market in mid- to late November 2019, which sparked the pandemic.”
Kristian Andersen, Scripps Research
“We have analyzed, in new and rigorous ways, the vitally important data that the Chinese CDC team collected,” says co-corresponding author Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona. “This is an authoritative analysis of that data and how it fits in with the rest of the huge body of evidence we have about how the pandemic started.”
On January 1, 2020, after the animals were removed and just hours after the market was closed,