Origins of Covid-19: Fresh look at pandemic origins heads straight to Wuhan food market, scientist says
The researcher, Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona, provided a careful timeline of all known SARS-Cov-2 cases before learning that a pandemic was starting.
He found many in people who lived or worked near the market, the suspected original source of the pandemic, even if they had no direct link to the market.
So he dives into known cases. He said that what he found supports the theory that the virus comes from a marketed animal – like the first SARS outbreak in 2002-2004 that infected 8,000 people before it was lost. stop.
That would make a seafood vendor working at the market sick on December 11, 2019, the earliest recorded case, Worobey said.
Other research helped Worobey map out the earliest cases that brought them together on the market.
“Many of the more than 100 cases of COVID-19 since December have no established epidemiological link to Huanan Market, living in its immediate vicinity is remarkable,” he wrote. provides convincing evidence that community transmission began in markets”.
“Big red flashing arrow”
“It tells us that there’s a big flashing red arrow pointing to Huanan Market where the pandemic is most likely,” Worobey told CNN. “The virus didn’t come from some other areas of Wuhan and then went to the Huanan market. The real evidence shows that the virus started in the market and then leaked into the neighborhoods around the market.”
The World Health Organization has conducted its own investigation into the origins of the pandemic and says animals are the most likely source of the pandemic. But WHO also said its conclusion was indeterminate and asked the Chinese government for more information and access.
This information may never come to light, Worobey said. The Chinese government cleared all the animals at the Huanan market and disinfected it when it became apparent that it was related to the outbreak of an infectious disease in January 2020 – eliminating the risk of further spread, but also destroying destroy important evidence.
“I wouldn’t call this convincing evidence, but I would call it pretty strong evidence,” Worobey said.
The journal Science has placed Worobey’s research outside of scrutiny before publication. And Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance and one of the WHO’s investigators, said he thinks it still exists.
“I was really impressed with the detective work he took on. Everything he said about the December 8 case is consistent with what we experienced in Wuhan during the WHO trip – there was a The group of early cases arrived at the hospital in late December and clinicians were back to work on the scheduled start date,” Daszak told CNN by email.
“They just made a mistake with this person because he could have gone to the hospital for another reason. This is the first known case of a Huanan market worker, not an accountant living near one of the molds. Wuhan laboratory staff,” Daszak added. “This now adds to about 10 other scientific evidence I’ve seen since the end of the WHO work, all of which point to provenance through wildlife farms and markets. No No evidence is completely conclusive, but when you sort them all out, it really shifts the balance toward ‘natural’ origins.”
Worobey joins a group of scientists who signed a letter in Science in May saying that the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory should be thoroughly investigated.
“I co-signed that letter in Science suggesting that the lab leak should be investigated,” Worobey told CNN. “But in the meantime, saint smoke – there’s a lot of evidence against it and in favor of natural origins.”
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