A team of scientists say it is “beyond reasonable doubt” the Covid pandemic started with infected animals sold at a market, rather than a laboratory leak.

They were analysing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan, China, in January 2020.

The results identify a shortlist of animals – including racoon dogs, civets and bamboo rats – as potential sources of the pandemic.

Despite even highlighting one market stall as a hotspot of both animals and coronavirus, the study cannot provide definitive proof.

The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic.

An early link with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was established when patients appeared in hospitals in Wuhan with a mystery pneumonia.

The market was closed and teams swabbed locations including stalls, the inside of animal cages and equipment used to strip fur and feathers from slaughtered animals. . . .

The results, published in the Cell, highlight a series of findings that come together to make their case.

It shows Covid virus and susceptible animals were detected in the same location, with some individual swabs collecting both animal and coronavirus genetic code. This is not evenly distributed across the market and points to very specific hotspots.

"We find a very consistent story in terms of this pointing - even at the level of a single stall - to the market as being the very likely origin of this particular pandemic," says Prof Kristian Andersen, from the Scripps Institute in the US.

However, being in the same place at the same time is not proof any animals were infected.

The origin of COVID-19 remains a topic of vigorous scientific debate. The most widely supported theory is the natural spillover hypothesis, which posits that the virus was transmitted to humans through a process of accumulated mutations while circulating among animals. This theory is backed by numerous genomic analyses and evolutionary biology studies that support the natural emergence of SARS-CoV-2,2,3,4,5 with concrete evidence showing adaptation processes through recombination events among various hosts such as bats and pangolins.

The second hypothesis is the so-called “lab-leak theory,” suggesting that a new variant may have accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) during serial passage or gain-of-function research on SARS-related viruses. Some circumstantial evidence seems to support this theory, such as reports that some WIV researchers showed COVID-like symptoms early on, records of high-risk coronavirus experiments led by Dr. Shi Zhengli’s team, and the fact that the earliest outbreak occurred in Wuhan.6 However, the viruses used in these experiments were not physically present but rather consisted of synthesized genetic sequences, meaning they were not complete, nor infectious viral particles capable of replication, and the pseudo-virus experiments conducted to test human cell entry lacked the ability to replicate. Dr. Shi Zhengli consistently emphasized from the outset that the virus was unrelated to their laboratory work.7

The third hypothesis is that the virus was deliberately engineered by the Chinese government or military as a biological weapon. This theory, however, lacks scientific credibility for multiple reasons. Most notably, if the virus were indeed developed as a bioweapon, there should have been a pre-developed vaccine or antidote to protect the developer's own population, which is a fundamental principle in biological warfare.8,9 In reality, China suffered massive losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is implausible to assume that any government would orchestrate such a self-destructive act.

On Jan. 12, 2020, Chinese investigators combing a market for clues about the outbreak of a mysterious new illness in the city of Wuhan swabbed a cart. It was the kind typically used for transporting animal cages, and it came back positive for the coronavirus.

Three years later, a team of international experts has sifted through the genetic contents of that swab, which were quietly uploaded to an international database and made public only this year. In a report released on Monday night, the scientists described in detail for the first time evidence from the swab that they say strengthens the case that illegally traded wild animals ignited the coronavirus pandemic.

Chinese researchers who had originally uploaded the raw data had it removed from the database after they were contacted by the international team. Now administrators of the database itself have cut off access to the international scientists for what they said were rules violations, raising questions about the database’s own role in the tug of war over access to data that could shed light on the origins of a virus that has killed seven million people.

Along with genetic signatures of the coronavirus, the swab from the cart contained more than 4,500 lengthy fragments of genetic material from raccoon dogs, the report said. It had none from humans. Some Covid-positive swabs taken from other objects and surfaces at the market, the report said, also had more genetic material from animals than from humans.

Finding genetic footprints from animals in the same place as genetic material from the virus does not prove that the animals themselves were infected. But some scientists who reviewed the report said that the dominance of genetic material from animals — and especially raccoon dogs — suggested that species known to be able to spread the coronavirus were indeed carrying infections at the market in late 2019.

I think Scoot was duped by a social media post again.