COVID-19 Didn't Come From Wuhan Market, Someone Brought It There, Study Shows

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, most of us firmly believe the pandemic started at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. However, a recent study has proven otherwise.

On Sunday, biologists at the Broad Institute, after analyzing the Coronavirus, concluded that COVID-19 was brought to the market by someone already carried the virus. They also expressed surprise at the way the Coronavirus had already adapted to human transmission when it reached the said market.

According to molecular biologist Alina Chan and evolutionary biologist Shing Zhan, their analysis did not confirm cross–species transmission at the Wuhan market. They insisted that all the possible ways the virus can transmit from animals to humans must be examined.

This study further fuels the already heated an international inquiry into the source of outbreak. According to Tory MP Bob Seely, a British Conservative Party politician, scientists need to go to the bottoms of all things related to COVID-19.

Knowing where the virus comes from is key to find a vaccine against it and methods to stop new cases from increasing. The problem relating to this pandemic is becoming more alarming when US president Donald Trump blamed China saying that the virus was from a lab in Wuhan while China said it was an US soldier who was patient zero.

China’s health officials seem to be quite certain that COVID-19 came from animals at a Wuhan market. This claim has the approval of WHO, which said it was highly likely the virus came from a fresh market in Wuhan.

The market in question was closed on the same day China notified WHO about the outbreak and officials with disinfectants were deployed immediately to the site. China took samples from all the animals at the market but after four months, the country has shared nothing with scientists from other nations. This act sparks outrage as many believe it would wipe away important traces.

The study looks into Sars-CoV-2 – the strain of Coronavirus that causes the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as those collected during the SARS outbreak nearly two decades ago.

The paper is by Ben and Chan Deverman, Broad Institute scientists. The research unit is affiliated to the MIT and Harvard University. Shing Zhan is from the University of British Columbia.

The research says scientists were taken aback as the Coronavirus remains quite stable instead of adapting to human transmission. The researchers said Sars-CoV-2 appeared with no peer late last year, which proves the human-adapted strand was the only one introduced to human population.

Scientists studied four samples with the Coronavirus taken from the wet market in Wuhan and compared them to those of Wuhan COVID-19 patients. The result is the two sets of samples are 99.9% identical. This suggests the pandemic is brought to the market by someone carrying the virus.

The authors also said they had found no evidence of cross transmission from animals to humans at the said market.

The study of Broad Institute scientists mirrors what some Chinese researchers conclude in their paper published in the Zoological Research journal. Earlier this year, some other Chinese scientists made public a paper on The Lancet revealing that only 27 over 41 cases of COVID-19 have been exposed to the wet market.

Zhan and Chan shared that while vaccine developers would be thrilled to learn about the stability of the virus, we are now in the dark about where Sars-CoV-2 came from in the first place. If we find out the source, we might be able to round up a pool in the wild where similar outbreak might emerge from in the future.

The scientists said the result of their study pointed to a single introduction of COVID-19 to human population, evident in the lack of sibling viruses when the outbreak first started.

They said nothing on the way the virus managed to adapt to humans but the scientists agreed there was no human interference here.

This study has not been peer-reviewed but it is enough to add to the ongoing tension over Beijing’s cover-up effort, which prevents foreign experts from looking into the pandemic and its reluctance in admitting human transmission.

Recently, a Frenchman was confirmed to carry the virus four days before China notifying WHO about the COVID-19 pandemic.

China has been denying the hypothesis that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, which studies bats. Despite this claim, last week, Beijing order tightening security at all of country’s labs that study viruses.

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