Thursday, September 17, 2020

The biggest mystery: what it will take to trace the coronavirus source

 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01541-z

 SARS-CoV-2 came from an animal but finding which one will be tricky, as will laying to rest speculation of a lab escape. 

 Since the pandemic began, the question of where the coronavirus came from has been one of the biggest puzzles. It almost certainly originated in bats, and a new study out this week — the most comprehensive analysis of coronaviruses in China — adds further weight to that theory.

But the lack of clarity around how the virus passed to people has meant that unsubstantiated theories — promoted by US President Donald Trump — that it escaped from a laboratory in China persist.

 By contrast, most researchers say the more likely explanation, given what is known so far about this virus and others like it, is that bats passed it to an intermediate animal, which then spread it to people.

 

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