Scientists who examined previously unavailable genetic data from samples collected at a market close to where the first human cases of COVID-19 were detected in China said they found suggestions the pandemic originated from animals, not a lab.
International scientists who examined previously unavailable genetic data from samples collected at a market close to where the first human cases of COVID-19 were detected in China said they found suggestions the pandemic originated from animals, not a lab.
He also criticized China for not sharing the genetic information earlier, adding that "this data could have and should have been shared three years ago." Genetic sequencing data showed that some of the samples, which were known to be positive for the coronavirus, also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs, indicating the animals may have been infected by the virus, according to the scientists. Their analysis was first reported in The Atlantic.
Scientists have been looking for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic since the virus first emerged, but that search has been complicated by factors including the massive surge of human infections in the pandemic's first two years and an increasingly bitter political dispute. After scientists in the group contacted the China CDC, they say, the sequences were pulled from the global virus database. Researchers are puzzled as to why data on the samples collected over three years ago wasn't made public sooner.
After a weeks-long visit to China to study the pandemic's origins, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that COVID most probably jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility of a lab origin as "extremely unlikely."
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