Coronavirus almost certainly came from an animal, not a lab leak, top scientists argue
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Maggie Fox, CNN
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(CNN) The coronavirus pandemic almost certainly originated from an animal, probably at a wildlife market in China, and not from a laboratory leak, a group of virus experts said Wednesday.
Theories about a lab leak are almost all based on coincidence, not hard evidence, the group of 20 top experts from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere said.
They had been following discussions going all the way to the White House about the possibility of a laboratory origin of the virus, and worked together to analyze the evidence.
Animal Contagion Most Likely Explanation For Covid Genesis, Says Study Animal Contagion Most Likely Explanation For Covid Genesis, Says 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.
Wuhan is the largest city in central China with multiple animal markets.
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.
Jul 8, 2021
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 on Zonodo 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.
Peter Ben Embarek of the World Health Organization team holds up a chart showing pathways of transmission of the virus during a joint news conference at the end of the WHO mission in Wuhan in central China s Hubei province. - AP
BEIJING (Global Times): Despite mounting political pressure, dozens of scientists recently published an open letter on international media journal The Lancet.
In the letter they urged that science, not speculation, is essential to determine how the virus that triggered the Covid-19 pandemic reached humans, reiterating that the virus most likely originated in nature and not in a laboratory and they refuted the US-led lab-leak theory that put some prominent epidemiologists into a difficult situation.