Early suspicions on pangolins and a laboratory, but scientists still convinced bats and animal market played key role in Covid-19

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Virus hunter Dr Peter Daszak talks pangolins, the lab and the Wuhan seafood market

Image: SIPA USA/PA Images Image: SIPA USA/PA Images COVID-19 PUT the city of Wuhan in China on everyone’s lips. The first patients infected with pneumonia symptoms turned up at hospitals in that city in December. But the question of where the Covid-19 virus originated remains open.

The initial Covid-19 outbreak centred on a seafood market in Wuhan. This market sold not just seafood, but live farm animals and also wild animals for eating. When Chinese scientists entered the Wuhan market to investigate, they took samples from surfaces and animals there to test for genetic fingerprints of the Covid-19 virus.

“The market was highly contaminated,” added Prof Wang. “In one corner of the market, where the mammals were kept, they got almost 90% positive environmental swabs. They even isolated a live virus.” Though called the Wuhan Seafood Market, it traded all sorts of wild animals. Professor Wang in Singapore worked with Chinese colleagues such as Dr Zhengli in studying bat coronaviruses. They investigated an outbreak of coronavirus that killed 25,000 piglets in 2018, which came from bats. Again showing the potential of these types of viruses to make lethal jumps into new species.

 

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T'was all going well there fr Dr. Wang til he said it wz unusual fr *InfectiousDiseases* MedicalDoctors, in any country, 2 suss out an unusual pneumonia&send a sample off 2 a lab😕That is literally their *only* business!The core of their practice!Lost all credibility right there

My God. Here’s some facts: 1. The wet market did not trade in bats. 2. That’s the reason, WHO looked for a intermediate host. They failed to fine that either. 3. The bat virus from South China which is 96% familiar to Covid19 was discovered in the WIV.

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