Experts still don’t know where the coronavirus (COVID-19) came from. It now turns out that the seafood market in Wuhan is one of the victims, the site of an early super-spreader rather than the source of coronavirus, according to the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Gao Fu, the director of the CDC, told Chinese state media in a radio interview yesterday that experts thought the virus originated in bats, then jumped to humans via an intermediary animal, but the exact location of the transition is unknown.
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Chinese authorities previously thought that the virus jump happened at the Wuhan seafood market. But CDC said that all samples of the animals in the market tested negative for COVID-19, meaning animals being sold there could not have infected shoppers.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Chinese scientists said they had now ruled out both animal market and a laboratory as possible origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Chinese scientists get support from National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins who told Politico the coronavirus is “absolutely not” manmade but he could not rule out the idea that it escaped from a lab in Wuhan. “What is clear, “he said, “is that nature created this virus, and has proven once again to be the most effective bioterrorist.”
US President Donald Trump leads the speculation that the virus leaked from a Chinese research laboratory, including from who said he’d seen evidence to prove it started in a virology lab. However, researchers say there is no evidence to support this theory.
