More than a year into the pandemic, the genesis of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was still a mystery.
Natural-origin proponents argue that the virus, like so many before it, emerged from the well-known phenomenon of natural spillover, jumping from a bat host to an intermediate species before going on to infect humans.
Those suspecting a lab-related incident point to an array of possible scenarios, from inadvertent exposure of a scientist during field research to the accidental release of a natural or manipulated strain during laboratory work.
The lack of concrete evidence supporting either theory has only increased the rancor.
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On February 25, 2022… China’s CDC published a preprint that contained new data. It revealed that, of the 457 swabs taken from 18 species of animals in the [Wuhan] market, none contained any evidence of the virus. Rather, the virus was found in 73 swabs taken from around the market’s environment, all linked to human infections. Thus, while the samples proved the market served as an “amplifier” of viral spread, they did not prove the market was the source.
Meanwhile, an analysis published on March 16 [2022] in the medical journal BMJ Global Health, written by a group of Italian scientists and coauthored by Sergei Pond, cites a growing body of studies indicating that the virus may have been spreading worldwide for weeks, or even months, before the officially recognized start date of December 2019. If true, this would entirely upend the presumption of the market as the genesis of the pandemic.
