Rather, it argues that “there is substantial body of scientific evidence supporting a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2”. The review paper says: “There is no evidence that any early cases had any connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in contrast to the clear epidemiological links to animal markets in Wuhan, nor evidence that the WIV possessed or worked on a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 prior to the pandemic.” Professor Holmes said: “Our careful and critical analysis of the currently available data provided no evidence for the idea that SARS-CoV-2 originated in a laboratory.” While the authors say that a laboratory accident “cannot be entirely dismissed” they emphasise that there currently exists zero evidence for such a laboratory origin. The paper summarises and reviews the existing scientific evidence for the origin of the virus, which causes COVID-19 in humans, concluding that overwhelmingly its most likely origin is zoonotic – a transfer from an animal source to human infection. And it is, I think, very embarrassing, given that that is exactly the same circumstances under which SARS-Coronavirus-1 emerged.An international team of eminent biologists, led by Professor Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney and Professor Andrew Rambaut from the University of Edinburgh, has published a critical review paper on the origins of SARS-COV-2 as a pre-print on Zenodo. That means that, essentially, all of this live animal sales and trading was occurring outside of the law.Īnd so it was completely unregulated. And the reason for that is that the live animal trade was integrally involved in the outbreak of SARS-Coronavirus-1 in the early 2000s.Īnd, at that time, the Chinese government said that they were going to crack down on the live animal trade and regulate it to be more safe. We found that we certainly had enough evidence to come to the conclusions that we came to with a high level of certainty.īut the second objection I have to that is the fact that, actually, a market outbreak looks really worse for the Chinese government than a lab accident. And the evidence bases are never complete. And the only thing that explains this is two people independently coming into the market and being infected with lineage B and lineage A about a week apart.Īnd, first, origins investigations are usually very light on evidence. This suggests that really there had to be two separate introductions into the market. Initially, we thought that lineage B was spreading at the market, but we didn't understand that lineage A was also there, until it was found in an environmental sample. And on top of that, those samples were often collected from things associated with animals, such as cages, hair and feather removal devices, and carts.Īnd then, finally, there were actually two different genetic varieties, or variants, of SARS-Coronavirus-2 that were at the market, lineage A and lineage B. That really strongly indicates that those samples, those environmental samples, may have come from the animals. And, furthermore, there were environmental samples collected from the site of the market where these animals were sold that were positive for SARS-Coronavirus-2. We found that, whether those cases were associated with the market or not, whether they had been to the market or not, they really clustered around the market and formed almost a circle around the market, where the market was in the dead center.Īnother piece of evidence is that we know that live animals, including some that were susceptible to SARS-Coronavirus-2 to infection, were being sold at the Huanan market, including in November and December of 2019. This was identified as a place that was important early on in the outbreak investigation. And you and several of your colleagues, including Michael Worobey, have got some pretty strong evidence in your paper that indicates this was the epicenter of the outbreak.Īngela Rasmussen, University of Saskatchewan: We plotted all of the early cases from December of 2019 on a map of Wuhan, whether they were associated with the Huanan market or not, and many of them were. So, the - at the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of attention was focused on this live animal market. Rasmussen, great to have you back on the "NewsHour." Angela Rasmussen is a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan.ĭr. But this new research attempts to get the clearest picture to date.Īnd I'm joined by one of its authors. The Chinese government has been accused of impeding a full investigation. Judy, trying to understand COVID's origins has been a complicated and politically fraught undertaking for almost three years now.
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