A new analysis of genetic material gathered from a live-animal market in Wuhan in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic strengthens the case that the outbreak originated there when the coronavirus jumped from infected animals to humans, scientists said. The findings, reported the journal Cell, do not identify any specific infected animal that brought the SARS-CoV-2 virus to a Chinese city inhabited by more than 11 million people.
But no DNA from bats or pangolins turned up in any of the Huanan market samples. Raccoon dogs, masked palm civets, hoary bamboo rats and Malayan porcupines have transmitted bat coronaviruses before, the study authors noted. Could they have done so in Wuhan, they wondered? It is unclear whether bamboo rats or Malayan porcupines can be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the study authors wrote.