A new perspective on the origins of COVID has been released in a report that suggests the earliest known case of the disease occurred at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan.
According to the report, the earliest confirmed case of COVID was a seafood vendor, whose illness started on December 11, 2019.
Scientists have reacted to his report with praise and criticism.
Dr Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security who is focusing on SARS-CoV-2, said on Twitter of [author Michael] Worobey’s analysis: “There’s been a lot of hand waving and water-muddying from random ‘internet sleuths’ who do this as a hobby, but this is what happens when a brilliant scientist specializing in pandemic pathogens and viral evolution decides to apply actual expertise to the sleuthing.”
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But Richard Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and a vocal critic of the natural origins narrative, cast doubt on the report: “Chinese news media reported verified cases in mid-November 2019, and Chinese scientific papers reported verified cases in [the] first week of December 2019,” he tweeted in response to Worobey’s study.
“No serious person claims the first cases occurred only in mid-December 2019.”
