12 ms·

Wuhan market was epicentre of pandemic’s start, studies suggest

55 points by lgvln 5y ago

mandmandam 5y ago
modernpink 5y ago
Note that this is based on studies by Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions [1] that has not yet been peer reviewed. Occam's Razor says that the Wuhan Institute of Virology known for studying coronaviruses must have played a part. [1] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1
- OscarCunningham 5y ago
  It's kind of strange that China would be biased about this. Why is it worse for them if the pandemic escaped from a lab rather from the animal markets they were repeatedly warned might cause a pandemic? They bear all the blame either way.
  - modernpink 5y ago
    I suppose they would think it better to be thought of worse for bad eating habits than it is to be incompetent at abiding by international standards for conducting science, or even to have maliciously released a bioweapon.
- alevskaya 5y ago
  Occam's razor does not mean every coincidence is meaningful - that's just pareidolia. The simplest scenario is that this viral pandemic is like every other one in known history - including the last coronavirus pandemic - a zoonotic crossover. Something that most professional biologists like myself has have been trying to stress.
  - peakaboo 5y ago
    The difference is - humans now has the capability to create viruses. And it's obvious that covid is created by humans. You just need to look at its generic code to figure that out.
    - crest 5y ago
      Citation needed!
    - gus_massa 5y ago
      Do you have a link for that? Last time I read a preprint claiming that, it was about a few (4?) parts that covid-19 has that are equal to parts of of other virus. But the matches were very short and some of them not even consecutive parts. It's very easy to get matches by chance comparing all the genome of covid-19 with all the genome of other virus, and if you allow holes in the matches it's even easier.
      - jtc331 5y ago
        I found that unconvincing also. However the fact that the matching parts are in the furin cleavage site (which has never been seen in a coronavirus) did at least bump claim up to “this could plausibly be interesting”.
      - Ekaros 5y ago
        My understanding is that in general on average DNA across things is very similar. Specifics are different, but lot of material is shared even across species. And then take fact that there is essentially 4 characters with million pairs to read surely some random data will collide.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Lots of people looked at it, and they did not conclude that.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      I have always wondered if this wasn't a deep-state operation by USA to make China look bad. Would make perfect sense right? Collect some samples, make a virus, release in Wuhan. Then blame China on it to lessen their soft-power... Exactly type of evil stuff that USA is well known for... Like toppling democracies, assassinations and funding terrorism... Sounds to me like most realistic and simplest explanation knowing the sides involved.
- floitsch 5y ago
  Occam's razor states: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Given that viruses have multiple times spread from animals to humans this would be the simplest explanation, favored by Occam's razor. That said, the scientific community has not ruled out a lab leak. The Atlantic generally has very good articles on where the investigation stand, and how different people interpret the probabilities/coincidences. For example https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak-pandemic-origins-even-messier/620209/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak... Given that China is not really interested in any conclusion on this topic (except if the virus was imported from a different country) we will probably never know.
- twoslide 5y ago
  Your comment is factully incorrect. The article cites three studies, only one of which (Gao et al) is based in a Chinese institution. The other two have lead authors at University of Arizona [1] and UC San Diego [2]. Note that [1] is specifically titled "The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence" Mischaracterizing the evidence and/or article really doesn't strengthen the "Occam's razor" argument. [1] https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 [2] https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  You have linked to only one of the three preprints and used it to claim that all three preprints are from Chinese labs. These are the author names from the three preprints: The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence Authors: Michael Worobey; Joshua I. Levy; Lorena M. Malpica Serrano; Alexander Crits-Christoph; Jonathan E. Pekar; Stephen A. Goldstein; Angela L. Rasmussen; Moritz U. G. Kraemer; Chris Newman; Marion P. G. Koopmans; Marc A. Suchard; Joel O. Wertheim; Philippe Lemey; David L. Robertson; Robert F. Garry; Edward C. Holmes; Andrew Rambaut; Kristian G. Andersen Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events Authors: Pekar, Jonathan E.; Magee, Andrew; Parker, Edyth; Moshiri, Niema; Izhikevich, Katherine; Havens, Jennifer L.; Gangavarapu, Karthik; Malpica Serrano, Lorena M.; Crits-Christoph, Alexander; Matteson, Nathaniel L.; Zeller, Mark; Levy, Joshua I.; Wang, Jade C.; Hughes, Scott; Lee, Jungmin; Park, Heedo; Park, Man-Seong; Ching Zi Yan, Katherine; Tzer Pin Lin, Raymond; Mat Isa, Mohd Noor; Muhammad Noor, Yusuf; Vasylyeva, Tetyana I.; Garry, Robert F.; Holmes, Edward C.; Rambaut, Andrew; Suchard, Marc A.; Andersen, Kristian G.; Worobey, Michael; Wertheim, Joel O. Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood Market Authors: William J. Liu, Peipei Liu, Wenwen Lei, Zhiyuan Jia, Xiaozhou He, Linlin Liu Weifeng Shi, Yun Tan, Shumei Zou, Xiang Zhao, Gary Wong, Ji Wang, Feng Wang, Gang Wang, Kun Qin, Rongbao Gao, Jie Zhang, Min Li, Wenling Xiao, Yuanyuan Guo, Ziqian Xu, Yingze Zhao, Jingdong Song, Jing Zhang, Wei Zhen, Wenting Zhou, Beiwei Ye, Juan Song, Mengjie Yang, Weimin Zhou, Yuhai Bi, Kun Cai, Dayan Wang, Wenjie Tan, Jun Han, Wenbo Xu, George F. Gao, Guizhen Wu Online: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 In the linked pdfs you can see the affiliations of the preprints. The first two are researchers from universities in the US, UK, Australia and EU countries. The last one is researchers from Chinese institutes. Bottom line: the article is not based on studies by "Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions" as you say. Also, please don't abuse Occam's Razor as a tool to shut down curious discussion.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fgutrddvbh 5y ago
ergocoder 5y ago
odiroot 5y ago
I'd recommend people to read Matt Ridley's book before trusting these "studies". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58647975-viral https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58647975-viral
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- alevskaya 5y ago
  Alina chan's original "evidence" put ridiculous weight on a few SNPs before we really had a lot of data or understanding of sars-cov-2 evolution (esp. it's enormously broad mammalian host range). It looks ridiculous in retrospect... and the rest of that book is conspiratorial storytelling without much in the way of evidence to back any of those fever dreams up.
WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
denton-scratch 5y ago
I wish people would stop using the word "epicentre" when the appropriate word is "centre". An epicentre is a point on the earth's surface vertically above the centre of an earthquake. I think writers use the word "epicentre" when they're not sure if the location in question is the centre, or not; it seems to be used to mean "handwavy centre".
- _Wintermute 5y ago
  > it seems to be used to mean "handwavy centre". The "epi-" prefix is typically used to mean "near" or "close-to", so it seems like a good use of the word.
wrp 5y ago
My take on Worobey, et al. and Pekar, et al. is that the most significant thing to consider is that two strains of SARS-CoV-2 emerged at the same place in November-December 2019, Lineage A and Lineage B. Worobey makes strong claims based on geographic data, but I can see weaknesses in that. The genetic evidence for multiple crossovers provides a stronger indication of animal origin.
wokwokwok 5y ago
Someone writes up a bunch of tweets Omnicron is a lab leak too: 576 points. Three studies suggest it originated from the Wuhan markets: 28 points. Mmm. This came up recently, and I think it's high relevant to some of the folk posting here: https://jaydaigle.net/blog/replication-crisis-math/ https://jaydaigle.net/blog/replication-crisis-math/ > A lot of psychology results that don’t replicate look a little different from this perspective. Does standing in a power pose for a few seconds make you feel more confident? Probably! It sure feels like it does (seriously, stand up and give it a try right now); and it would be weird if it made you feel worse. > Does it affect you enough, for a long enough time, to matter much? > Probably not. That would also be weird. Papers like these are uncontroversial, because they are probably right. If they were all wrong, it would be weird. Surprising. TED talk worthy. Not impossible... but, probably not.
- lgvln 5y ago
  OP here. I have been monitoring this post on and off and it seems like a significant number of people are flagging it. It went onto the front page at least twice (both times ranked in the 10s) and disappeared from there. As of now, it is back on and ranked 103. I recognize that there are some questions regarding the papers (they are not peer reviewed yet) but the response to it on HN is both puzzling and troubling.
  - bediger4000 5y ago
    How is the response on HN puzzling and troubling? I mean, HN got more polarized during 2016-2020. The issue in question is really, really important to people on one of the poles, and thus becomes an issue to people on the other pole.
    - lgvln 5y ago
      My concern is the spirit of sensible public discourse here on HN. It has nothing to with one’s position on any particular issue. In any case, one would want and need credible information to make a justified judgement, not to have evidence or views contrary to one’s position be simply removed. To have a post from legitimate source flagged/removed from the front page repeatedly _is_ puzzling and troubling. It makes one wonder what sort of post actually gets onto the front page on HN.
pizza234 5y ago
I find it very interesting that this in in conflict with the report as described in the book "Viral". Article: > They also examined the locations of the positive samples collected in the market, as reported in the WHO study Book: > Eventually, when international experts convened by the WHO were granted permission by China to visit Wuhan and arrived in early 2021, they were given a detailed run-down on what had been found in the market. The China-WHO joint report published on 30 March 2021 revealed that the Chinese CDC inspectors had visited the market about thirty times from 1 January before a final clean up on 2 March 2020. In addition to animal products and frozen goods, samples had been taken from doors, stalls, transport carts, trash cans, toilets, sewage, ventilation systems, stray cats and other animal vectors such as mice. Two other nearby markets had also been sampled. > This China-WHO report revealed a different picture from that given by media reports. The market was called a seafood market for a reason: most of the stalls were selling seafood and freshwater aquatic products. Crocodiles were being sold alive. Snakes and salamanders were being slaughtered on the spot for sale. From sales records in December 2019, just ten stalls were selling meat or products from birds and mammals, including chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants and doves; and deer, badgers, rabbits, bamboo rats, porcupines and hedgehogs. According to the market authorities, all of these animals were from licensed farms and no illegal trade in wildlife was detected. > The authorities tested 457 samples from 188 animals spanning 18 species. They all proved negative for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. This included 27 stray cats (a species that is susceptible to the virus), which were presumably living free in or around the market, as well as 52 rabbits and hares, 16 hedgehogs, ten mice, seven dogs, six muntjac deer, six badgers, six bamboo rats, a number of pigs, five chickens, three giant salamanders, two wild boar, two crocodiles, two soft-shelled turtles, two fish, one sheep and one weasel. They tested 616 animals of ten species from the suppliers to the market and found no sign of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. > A total of 923 environmental samples were tested, meaning samples from countertops, door handles, toilets, sewage and the like. By mapping the samples that came back positive for virus genetic material to the stalls in the market, the China-WHO team were able to assess what products the vendors at those affected stalls were selling. Of the twenty-one impacted vendors, sixteen were selling ‘cold-chain products’ – delivered and sold in frozen form – out of eighty-seven vendors selling such products whose stalls were sampled; thirteen out of seventy-three selling aquatic products; six out of fifty-six for seafood; eight of thirty-seven for poultry; five of thirty-six for livestock; and two of eight selling vegetables. Only one out of nine vendors selling wildlife products was linked to a positive market environmental sample, and he or she had also been selling cold-chain products, aquatic products, poultry and livestock products. > Needless to say, this was a vital slug of information to emerge after so many months of speculation worldwide that the wildlife trade was bound to be the culprit. There was, after the back and forth by the Chinese CDC director and a year of waiting, no evidence that the virus had emerged in the Huanan seafood market via the wildlife trade. The epidemiological data, the genetic data and the positive environmental samples from the market were consistent with a scenario in which a sick person brought the virus into the market, where it became amplified in a poorly ventilated and crowded space. On the role of the Huanan seafood market, the China-WHO joint team stated that: ‘No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn.’
jacknews 5y ago
This seems to be interesting timing, with the current geopolitical situation, that Nature are now even acknowledging this kind of claim.
eggy 5y ago
I lived in Macao, China for 6-plus years, and I have been to wet markets. Isn't this simply a model of spread with other contributing factors to find an origin? The other point is that the Wuhan Huanan Haixian Seafood Market is close enough to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, 26 min. 19.6 km, that I can picture lab personnel stopping by the market to pick up premade lunches, or raw food for cooking later at home. If they had an unnoticed mishap at the lab, and were carrying the COVID virus, this would explain how it took off at the market where many people congregate. The fact that bats and pangolins were not sold there per an Oxford University study, and all of the animals they tested around the WIV and far from it, did not have the SARS-CoV-2 virus, kind of points to a potential modeling error or wrong conclusion. This and the 292 pages finally released by the NIH that are so redacted to be totally useless, certainly raises the stink level. What are they redacting? Hey, if they did nothing wrong they should have nothing to hide, right. I am now a vegetarian, but I used to go to the wet market and choose a live chicken, and have it butchered to bring home. They were pretty messy places, and would by no means pass around here, although you take your chances with street food anywhere, I guess.

55 points by lgvln 5y ago

Note that this is based on studies by Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions [1] that has not yet been peer reviewed. Occam's Razor says that the Wuhan Institute of Virology known for studying coronaviruses must have played a part. [1] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1

OscarCunningham 5y ago
It's kind of strange that China would be biased about this. Why is it worse for them if the pandemic escaped from a lab rather from the animal markets they were repeatedly warned might cause a pandemic? They bear all the blame either way.
- modernpink 5y ago
  I suppose they would think it better to be thought of worse for bad eating habits than it is to be incompetent at abiding by international standards for conducting science, or even to have maliciously released a bioweapon.
alevskaya 5y ago
Occam's razor does not mean every coincidence is meaningful - that's just pareidolia. The simplest scenario is that this viral pandemic is like every other one in known history - including the last coronavirus pandemic - a zoonotic crossover. Something that most professional biologists like myself has have been trying to stress.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  The difference is - humans now has the capability to create viruses. And it's obvious that covid is created by humans. You just need to look at its generic code to figure that out.
  - crest 5y ago
    Citation needed!
  - gus_massa 5y ago
    Do you have a link for that? Last time I read a preprint claiming that, it was about a few (4?) parts that covid-19 has that are equal to parts of of other virus. But the matches were very short and some of them not even consecutive parts. It's very easy to get matches by chance comparing all the genome of covid-19 with all the genome of other virus, and if you allow holes in the matches it's even easier.
    - jtc331 5y ago
      I found that unconvincing also. However the fact that the matching parts are in the furin cleavage site (which has never been seen in a coronavirus) did at least bump claim up to “this could plausibly be interesting”.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      My understanding is that in general on average DNA across things is very similar. Specifics are different, but lot of material is shared even across species. And then take fact that there is essentially 4 characters with million pairs to read surely some random data will collide.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Lots of people looked at it, and they did not conclude that.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    I have always wondered if this wasn't a deep-state operation by USA to make China look bad. Would make perfect sense right? Collect some samples, make a virus, release in Wuhan. Then blame China on it to lessen their soft-power... Exactly type of evil stuff that USA is well known for... Like toppling democracies, assassinations and funding terrorism... Sounds to me like most realistic and simplest explanation knowing the sides involved.
floitsch 5y ago
Occam's razor states: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Given that viruses have multiple times spread from animals to humans this would be the simplest explanation, favored by Occam's razor. That said, the scientific community has not ruled out a lab leak. The Atlantic generally has very good articles on where the investigation stand, and how different people interpret the probabilities/coincidences. For example https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak-pandemic-origins-even-messier/620209/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak... Given that China is not really interested in any conclusion on this topic (except if the virus was imported from a different country) we will probably never know.
twoslide 5y ago
Your comment is factully incorrect. The article cites three studies, only one of which (Gao et al) is based in a Chinese institution. The other two have lead authors at University of Arizona [1] and UC San Diego [2]. Note that [1] is specifically titled "The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence" Mischaracterizing the evidence and/or article really doesn't strengthen the "Occam's razor" argument. [1] https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 [2] https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
You have linked to only one of the three preprints and used it to claim that all three preprints are from Chinese labs. These are the author names from the three preprints: The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence Authors: Michael Worobey; Joshua I. Levy; Lorena M. Malpica Serrano; Alexander Crits-Christoph; Jonathan E. Pekar; Stephen A. Goldstein; Angela L. Rasmussen; Moritz U. G. Kraemer; Chris Newman; Marion P. G. Koopmans; Marc A. Suchard; Joel O. Wertheim; Philippe Lemey; David L. Robertson; Robert F. Garry; Edward C. Holmes; Andrew Rambaut; Kristian G. Andersen Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 https://zenodo.org/record/6299600 SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events Authors: Pekar, Jonathan E.; Magee, Andrew; Parker, Edyth; Moshiri, Niema; Izhikevich, Katherine; Havens, Jennifer L.; Gangavarapu, Karthik; Malpica Serrano, Lorena M.; Crits-Christoph, Alexander; Matteson, Nathaniel L.; Zeller, Mark; Levy, Joshua I.; Wang, Jade C.; Hughes, Scott; Lee, Jungmin; Park, Heedo; Park, Man-Seong; Ching Zi Yan, Katherine; Tzer Pin Lin, Raymond; Mat Isa, Mohd Noor; Muhammad Noor, Yusuf; Vasylyeva, Tetyana I.; Garry, Robert F.; Holmes, Edward C.; Rambaut, Andrew; Suchard, Marc A.; Andersen, Kristian G.; Worobey, Michael; Wertheim, Joel O. Online: https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 https://zenodo.org/record/6291628 Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood Market Authors: William J. Liu, Peipei Liu, Wenwen Lei, Zhiyuan Jia, Xiaozhou He, Linlin Liu Weifeng Shi, Yun Tan, Shumei Zou, Xiang Zhao, Gary Wong, Ji Wang, Feng Wang, Gang Wang, Kun Qin, Rongbao Gao, Jie Zhang, Min Li, Wenling Xiao, Yuanyuan Guo, Ziqian Xu, Yingze Zhao, Jingdong Song, Jing Zhang, Wei Zhen, Wenting Zhou, Beiwei Ye, Juan Song, Mengjie Yang, Weimin Zhou, Yuhai Bi, Kun Cai, Dayan Wang, Wenjie Tan, Jun Han, Wenbo Xu, George F. Gao, Guizhen Wu Online: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1 In the linked pdfs you can see the affiliations of the preprints. The first two are researchers from universities in the US, UK, Australia and EU countries. The last one is researchers from Chinese institutes. Bottom line: the article is not based on studies by "Chinese-only researchers in state-backed institutions" as you say. Also, please don't abuse Occam's Razor as a tool to shut down curious discussion.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fgutrddvbh 5y ago

ergocoder 5y ago

odiroot 5y ago

I'd recommend people to read Matt Ridley's book before trusting these "studies". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58647975-viral https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58647975-viral

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
alevskaya 5y ago
Alina chan's original "evidence" put ridiculous weight on a few SNPs before we really had a lot of data or understanding of sars-cov-2 evolution (esp. it's enormously broad mammalian host range). It looks ridiculous in retrospect... and the rest of that book is conspiratorial storytelling without much in the way of evidence to back any of those fever dreams up.

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago

denton-scratch 5y ago

I wish people would stop using the word "epicentre" when the appropriate word is "centre". An epicentre is a point on the earth's surface vertically above the centre of an earthquake. I think writers use the word "epicentre" when they're not sure if the location in question is the centre, or not; it seems to be used to mean "handwavy centre".

_Wintermute 5y ago
> it seems to be used to mean "handwavy centre". The "epi-" prefix is typically used to mean "near" or "close-to", so it seems like a good use of the word.

wrp 5y ago

My take on Worobey, et al. and Pekar, et al. is that the most significant thing to consider is that two strains of SARS-CoV-2 emerged at the same place in November-December 2019, Lineage A and Lineage B. Worobey makes strong claims based on geographic data, but I can see weaknesses in that. The genetic evidence for multiple crossovers provides a stronger indication of animal origin.

wokwokwok 5y ago

Someone writes up a bunch of tweets Omnicron is a lab leak too: 576 points. Three studies suggest it originated from the Wuhan markets: 28 points. Mmm. This came up recently, and I think it's high relevant to some of the folk posting here: https://jaydaigle.net/blog/replication-crisis-math/ https://jaydaigle.net/blog/replication-crisis-math/ > A lot of psychology results that don’t replicate look a little different from this perspective. Does standing in a power pose for a few seconds make you feel more confident? Probably! It sure feels like it does (seriously, stand up and give it a try right now); and it would be weird if it made you feel worse. > Does it affect you enough, for a long enough time, to matter much? > Probably not. That would also be weird. Papers like these are uncontroversial, because they are probably right. If they were all wrong, it would be weird. Surprising. TED talk worthy. Not impossible... but, probably not.

lgvln 5y ago
OP here. I have been monitoring this post on and off and it seems like a significant number of people are flagging it. It went onto the front page at least twice (both times ranked in the 10s) and disappeared from there. As of now, it is back on and ranked 103. I recognize that there are some questions regarding the papers (they are not peer reviewed yet) but the response to it on HN is both puzzling and troubling.
- bediger4000 5y ago
  How is the response on HN puzzling and troubling? I mean, HN got more polarized during 2016-2020. The issue in question is really, really important to people on one of the poles, and thus becomes an issue to people on the other pole.
  - lgvln 5y ago
    My concern is the spirit of sensible public discourse here on HN. It has nothing to with one’s position on any particular issue. In any case, one would want and need credible information to make a justified judgement, not to have evidence or views contrary to one’s position be simply removed. To have a post from legitimate source flagged/removed from the front page repeatedly _is_ puzzling and troubling. It makes one wonder what sort of post actually gets onto the front page on HN.

pizza234 5y ago

I find it very interesting that this in in conflict with the report as described in the book "Viral". Article: > They also examined the locations of the positive samples collected in the market, as reported in the WHO study Book: > Eventually, when international experts convened by the WHO were granted permission by China to visit Wuhan and arrived in early 2021, they were given a detailed run-down on what had been found in the market. The China-WHO joint report published on 30 March 2021 revealed that the Chinese CDC inspectors had visited the market about thirty times from 1 January before a final clean up on 2 March 2020. In addition to animal products and frozen goods, samples had been taken from doors, stalls, transport carts, trash cans, toilets, sewage, ventilation systems, stray cats and other animal vectors such as mice. Two other nearby markets had also been sampled. > This China-WHO report revealed a different picture from that given by media reports. The market was called a seafood market for a reason: most of the stalls were selling seafood and freshwater aquatic products. Crocodiles were being sold alive. Snakes and salamanders were being slaughtered on the spot for sale. From sales records in December 2019, just ten stalls were selling meat or products from birds and mammals, including chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants and doves; and deer, badgers, rabbits, bamboo rats, porcupines and hedgehogs. According to the market authorities, all of these animals were from licensed farms and no illegal trade in wildlife was detected. > The authorities tested 457 samples from 188 animals spanning 18 species. They all proved negative for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. This included 27 stray cats (a species that is susceptible to the virus), which were presumably living free in or around the market, as well as 52 rabbits and hares, 16 hedgehogs, ten mice, seven dogs, six muntjac deer, six badgers, six bamboo rats, a number of pigs, five chickens, three giant salamanders, two wild boar, two crocodiles, two soft-shelled turtles, two fish, one sheep and one weasel. They tested 616 animals of ten species from the suppliers to the market and found no sign of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. > A total of 923 environmental samples were tested, meaning samples from countertops, door handles, toilets, sewage and the like. By mapping the samples that came back positive for virus genetic material to the stalls in the market, the China-WHO team were able to assess what products the vendors at those affected stalls were selling. Of the twenty-one impacted vendors, sixteen were selling ‘cold-chain products’ – delivered and sold in frozen form – out of eighty-seven vendors selling such products whose stalls were sampled; thirteen out of seventy-three selling aquatic products; six out of fifty-six for seafood; eight of thirty-seven for poultry; five of thirty-six for livestock; and two of eight selling vegetables. Only one out of nine vendors selling wildlife products was linked to a positive market environmental sample, and he or she had also been selling cold-chain products, aquatic products, poultry and livestock products. > Needless to say, this was a vital slug of information to emerge after so many months of speculation worldwide that the wildlife trade was bound to be the culprit. There was, after the back and forth by the Chinese CDC director and a year of waiting, no evidence that the virus had emerged in the Huanan seafood market via the wildlife trade. The epidemiological data, the genetic data and the positive environmental samples from the market were consistent with a scenario in which a sick person brought the virus into the market, where it became amplified in a poorly ventilated and crowded space. On the role of the Huanan seafood market, the China-WHO joint team stated that: ‘No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn.’

jacknews 5y ago

This seems to be interesting timing, with the current geopolitical situation, that Nature are now even acknowledging this kind of claim.

eggy 5y ago

I lived in Macao, China for 6-plus years, and I have been to wet markets. Isn't this simply a model of spread with other contributing factors to find an origin? The other point is that the Wuhan Huanan Haixian Seafood Market is close enough to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, 26 min. 19.6 km, that I can picture lab personnel stopping by the market to pick up premade lunches, or raw food for cooking later at home. If they had an unnoticed mishap at the lab, and were carrying the COVID virus, this would explain how it took off at the market where many people congregate. The fact that bats and pangolins were not sold there per an Oxford University study, and all of the animals they tested around the WIV and far from it, did not have the SARS-CoV-2 virus, kind of points to a potential modeling error or wrong conclusion. This and the 292 pages finally released by the NIH that are so redacted to be totally useless, certainly raises the stink level. What are they redacting? Hey, if they did nothing wrong they should have nothing to hide, right. I am now a vegetarian, but I used to go to the wet market and choose a live chicken, and have it butchered to bring home. They were pretty messy places, and would by no means pass around here, although you take your chances with street food anywhere, I guess.