Pandemic start point is Wuhan seafood market, says top virus sleuth : Goats and Soda : NPR
By: NPR. org
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
March 3, 20224:34 PM ET
Michaeleen Doucleff
Striking new evidence points to seafood market in Wuhan as pandemic's origin point
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Security guards stand in front of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 11, 2020, after the market had been closed following an outbreak of COVID-19 there. Two new studies document samples of SARS-CoV-2 from stalls where live animals were sold. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images
Security guards stand in front of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 11, 2020, after the market had been closed following an outbreak of COVID-19 there. Two new studies document samples of SARS-CoV-2 from stalls where live animals were sold.
Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images
Was it a few raccoon dogs, inside a metal cage and stacked on top of a chicken coop? Or perhaps a lone red fox, curled up in the corner of its cage. Could one of these wild animals have triggered the entire COVID-19 pandemic late in 2019?
Over the weekend, an international team of scientists published two extensive papers online, offering the strongest evidence to date that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in animals at a market in Wuhan, China. Specifically, they conclude that the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where a huge COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019.
Scientists who weren't involved in the research papers are calling the new data "very convincing" and a "blow" to the lab-leak theory — that the virus somehow escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which does research on coronaviruses. In reaction to the papers, they say the newly published data is tipping the scales toward wildlife sold at the market.
"The studies don't exclude other hypotheses entirely," says virologist Jeremy Kamil, who's at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport and was not involved in this research. "But they absolutely are pushing it toward an animal origin."
Neither of the papers provides the smoking gun — that is, an animal infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus at a market.
But they come close. They provide photographic evidence of wild animals, which can be infected with and shed SARS-CoV-2, sitting in the market in late 2019 — such as raccoon dogs and a red fox. What's more, the caged animals are shown in or near a stall where scientists found SARS-CoV-2 virus on a number of surfaces, including on cages, carts and machines that process animals after they are slaughtered at the market.
The papers are preliminary. They still need to be reviewed by outside scientists. But if the analyses turn out to be accurate, the new data paints an incredibly detailed picture of the early days of the pandemic. Photographic and genetic data pinpoint a specific stall at the market where the coronavirus likely was transmitted from an animal into people. And a new genetic analysis estimates the time, within weeks, when not just one but two spillovers occurred. It predicts the coronavirus jumped into people once in late November or early December and then again few weeks later.
So now, for the first time, the timing of the earliest known coronavirus infections coincides almost exactly with the timing of the outbreak at the seafood market, which began in early December and likely involved hundreds of people working or shopping at the market. That outbreak also spilled over into the surrounding community, as one of the new studies shows.
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Staff members of the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team investigate the shuttered Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on Jan. 11, 2020, after it was linked to cases of COVID-19. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images
Staff members of the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team investigate the shuttered Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on Jan. 11, 2020, after it was linked to cases of COVID-19.
Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images
At the same time, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention found two variants of the coronavirus inside the market. And an independent study, led by virologists at the University of California, San Diego, suggests these two variants didn't evolve in people, because throughout the entire pandemic, scientists have never detected a variant linking the two together. Altogether, the new studies suggest that, most likely, the two variants evolved inside animals.
Michael Worobey is a top virus sleuth. He has tracked the origins of the 1918 flu, HIV and now SARS-CoV-2. Worobey is a research professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. University of Arizona hide caption
toggle caption University of Arizona
Evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey helped lead two of the studies and has been at the forefront of the search for the origins of the pandemic. He has spent his career tracking down the origins of pandemics, including the origin of HIV and the 1918 flu.
Back in May, Worobey signed a letter calling for an investigation into the lab-leak theory. But then, through his own investigation, he quickly found data supporting an animal origin.
This week, NPR spoke to Worobey, who's at the University of Arizona, to understand what the data in these new studies tells us about the origin of SARS-CoV-2; how, he believes, the data may shift the debate about the lab-leak theory; and the significance of photos taken five years before the pandemic. Here are key points from the conversation, which has been edited for clarity and length.
Live animals that are susceptible to COVID-19 were in the market in December 2019
It's clear-cut these wild, live animals, including raccoon dogs and red foxes, were in the market. We have photographic evidence from December 2019. A concerned customer evidently took these photos and videos of the market on Dec. 3 and posted them on Weibo [because it was illegal to sell certain live animals]. The photos were promptly scrubbed. But a CNN reporter had communicated directly with the person who took the photos. I was able to get in touch with this reporter, and they passed on those photos from the source. So we don't completely verify the photos.
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An anonymous user on the Chinese social media platform Weibo posted pictures of live animals for sale in the southwest corner of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan in 2019. Worobey and Holmes et al. hide caption
toggle caption Worobey and Holmes et al.
An anonymous user on the Chinese social media platform Weibo posted pictures of live animals for sale in the southwest corner of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan in 2019.
Worobey and Holmes et al. 
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Researchers investigating the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus are including these images in a forthcoming academic paper that pinpoints the southwest corner of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market as the most probable origin point of the pandemic. Worobey and Holmes et al. hide caption
toggle caption Worobey and Holmes et al.
Researchers investigating the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus are including these images in a forthcoming academic paper that pinpoints the southwest corner of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market as the most probable origin point of the pandemic.
Worobey and Holmes et al.
Live susceptible animals were held in a stall where SARS-CoV-2 was later detected on a machine that processed animals in the market
We analyzed a leaked report from the Chinese CDC detailing the results of this environmental sampling. Virtually all of the findings in the report matched what was in the World Health Organization's report. But there was some extra information in the leaked report. For example, there was information not just on which stalls had virus in them — or had samples positive for SARS-CoV-2 — but also how many samples in a given stall yielded positive results.
We found out that one stall actually had five positive samples — five surfaces in that stall had virus on them. And even better, in that particular stall, the samples were very animal-y. For example, scientists found virus on a feather/hair remover, a cart of the sort that we see in photographs that are used for transporting cages and, best of all, a metal cage in a back room.
So now we know that when the national public health authorities shut down the market and then sampled the surfaces there, one of the surfaces positive for SARS-CoV-2 was a metal cage in a back room.
What's even weirder — it turns out that one of the co-authors of the study, Eddie Holmes, had been taken to the Huanan market several years before the pandemic and shown raccoon dogs in one of the stalls. He was told, "This is the kind of place that has the ingredients for cross-species transmission of dangerous pathogens."
So he clicks photos of the raccoon dogs. In one photo, the raccoon dogs are in a cage stacked on top of a cage with some birds in it.
And at the end of our sleuth work, we checked the GPS coordinates on his camera, and we find that he took the photo at the same stall, where five samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
So we connected all sorts of bizarre kinds of data. Together the data are telling a strong story.
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These two photos, taken in 2014 by scientist Eddie Holmes, show raccoon dogs and unknown birds caged in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. GPS coordinates of these images confirm that the animals were housed in the southwest corner of the market, where researchers found evidence of the coronavirus in January 2020. Eddie Holmes hide caption
toggle caption Eddie Holmes
These two photos, taken in 2014 by scientist Eddie Holmes, show raccoon dogs and unknown birds caged in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. GPS coordinates of these images confirm that the animals were housed in the southwest corner of the market, where researchers found evidence of the coronavirus in January 2020.
Eddie Holmes
Earliest known cases of COVID-19, even those not directly related to individuals who had been in the market, radiate out from the market
With a virus, such as SARS-CoV-2, that causes no symptoms or mild symptoms in most people, you don't have any chance of linking all the early cases to the site where the outbreak started. Because the virus is going to quickly spread to people outside of wherever it started.
And yet, from the clinical observations in Wuhan, around half of the earliest known COVID cases were people directly linked to the seafood market. And the other cases, which aren't linked through epidemiological data, have an even closer geographical association to the market. That's what we show in our paper.
It's absurd how strong the geographical association is [to the market].
NPR: Absurd? How? In the sense that the seafood market is so clearly bull's-eye center of this outbreak?
Yes. And I don't understand how anyone could not be moved, at least somewhat, by that data and then take this idea [of an animal origin] seriously, especially given the other things we've found in these studies.
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The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on July 16, 2021. Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Getty Images
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on July 16, 2021.
Getty Images
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The virus jumped into people right before the outbreak in the market
For example, our new genetic analysis tells us that this virus was not around for very long when the cases occurred at the market. For example, the earliest known patient at the market had an onset of symptoms on Dec. 10, 2019. And we can estimate that at that point in time, there were only about 10 people infected with the virus in the world and probably fewer than 70.
So if the pandemic didn't start at the market, one of the first five or 10 people infected in the world was at the market. And how do you explain that?
You have to remember: Wuhan is a city of 11 million people. And the Huanan market is only 1 of 4 places in Wuhan that sold live animals susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, such as raccoon dogs.
It's highly unlikely that the first COVID-19 outbreak would occur at the market if there weren't a source of the virus there
Step back and think, "Where is the first cluster of a new respiratory infection going to appear in this city?" It could appear at a market. But it could also appear at a school, a university or a meatpacking plant.
NPR: Or a biotech conference?
Yes. In Washington state, SARS-CoV-2 first appeared in a nursing home. In Germany, it was at an auto-parts supplier.
There are thousands, perhaps 10,000, other places at least as likely, or even more likely, to be the place where a new pathogen shows up. And yet, in Wuhan, the first cluster of cases happens to be one of the four places that sells live animals, out of 10,000 other places. If you're not surprised by that, then I don't think you're understanding the unlikelihood that that presents.
NPR: So what is the likelihood of that coincidence happening — that the first cluster of cases occurs at a market that sells animals known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, but the virus didn't actually come from the market?
I would put the odds at 1 in 10,000. But it's interesting. We do have one analysis where we show essentially that the chance of having this pattern of cases [clustered around the market] is 1 in 10 million [if the market isn't a source of the virus]. We consider that strong evidence in science.
The analyses that we've done are telling a very strong story.
The evidence is amongst the best we have for any emerging virus.
NPR: Really?
It's important to note we haven't found a related virus from the intermediate host. But we have a bunch of other evidence.
And the data zeroing in on the Huanan market, to me, is as compelling as the data that indicated to John Snow that the water pump was poisoning people who used it. [John Snow was a doctor in London who helped launch the field of outbreak investigations by figuring out the source of a cholera outbreak in the city in the mid-19th century].
Making these findings brought tears
Sometimes you have these rare moments where you're maybe the only person on Earth who has access to this kind of crucial information. As I just started to figure out that there were more cases around the market than you can expect randomly — I felt that way. And no exaggeration, that moment — those kinds of moments — bring a tear to your eye.
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We will never know for sure, but the logic suggests the simplest answer to be the animals at the market. We've seen it before and we'll see it again.
Seems more logical to me than a leak at the lab
Scientists have been vocally opposed to the whole lab leak claim, since the claim was made. Unfortunately, with some people, science and logic hold a backdoor to politics.
As I remember, initially the lab leak claim was shot down. But more recently there have been more scientists who have come out saying that the lab leak theory is at least as plausible as coming from that wet market.
It sure did not help when Trump fueled hate and anger towards Asians here by calling it the China Virus and The Kung Flu, resulting in a rise in hate crimes and deaths by his Trumpturds.
The whole reason for that was for Trump to find a scapegoat for all the American deaths due to his inaction during the start of the pandemic.
That may very well be the case. I am somewhat concerned about any bad actors that have seen what a relatively mild pandemic (compared to the pandemics of years past with a 50 % plus mortality rate) can do to our country and our economy and exploit it. Hopefully we will react better the next time whether it be leaked, natural or on purpose.
Okay, possible (I really love that story trope genre) ... and given a government like China wouldn't really care about mass casualties in it's own country the actual people involved would have to be extremally concerned about themselves and their families. It would certainly take more than one person to accomplish an inside lab job leak.
Yeah, unless you're a complete sociopath I can't see China deliberately releasing the virus from a lab. Normal human behavior will put concern on themselves and their families to prevent that. Now an accidental release is possible, simple mistake while handling and not knowing your infected... That's been the main line in several stories...
We know they have the viruses and they will study and modify anything they're paid to study and modify. Once they have a suitable virus it only takes one person to steal a vial. We have suicide bombers imagine a suicide spreader who infects themselves with the virus and hops a plane once they're infectious.
Yes it would. You would also think someone in Putin's world would not be involved in his threat to use nukes but it seems there are plenty of people that would not have a problem with it, They think it is for the good of the country. I have a feeling there are plenty of people in China that would feel the same way.
Yes, still possible, but more difficult because there are redundant protocols and procedures to prevent such an event.
All the redundancies, protocols and safety procedures would need to be bypassed and while it's possible, is still less probable than the natural alternative.
Anyway the mortality rate of the original strain was 0.3% with the first variant dropping to 0.4%. Logic would dictate that anyone wanting to carry out something so damaging to the US they would want to release it in the US (not a few miles away) first and then use something far more deadly as to make a real impact. Something at least 2% with the transmissibility rate of the current natural mutations.
You have more faith than I do that all the redundancies and protocols could not be bypassed in China. The US I would agree but China I am not so sure.
The other thing is look at the havoc and financial problems a virus with a mortality rate of .3% caused. It seems a virus keeping the mortality rate lower (maybe even a percent or two) could be enough to accomplish plenty. I would think the goal is to cripple us, not necessarily kill us.
But who really knows what evil lurks in the hearts of the Chinese government?
Interesting article but the skeptic in me has a couple possible issues:
NPR touting it does not give me a warm fuzzy
The Chinese government has been less than forthcoming with any information regarding this. I am not going to say the Chinese government or the Chinese CDC have affected the data but I am not going to say they did not,
The time to find the cause of the virus was 2 years ago when it first came out.
The one thing this virus has proven is you can always find a scientist to agree with a position, no matter how off the wall the position is.
Yep, I am skeptical.
Does this surprise you? When has the Chinese government NOT been less than forthcoming with information about anything?
Don't forget, the Chinese CDC had an American scientist working with them, who would have been privy to all this information. When the current scientist left, it was the Trump administration NOT the Chinese government that chose to eliminate position. When COVID broke out, we had been the ones to have broken the lines of communication between the US and the Chinese CDC.
It doesn't surprise me. Although you are correct about the Chinese CDC they should not be the only way we could investigate this issue. It also seems like their government did not let them do an investigation. And even if there was still communication between the two CDC's I am confident there would have been a government filter on those communications.
I am sure the World Health Organization would have issues with that statement.
Let who do an investigation? Us? Do you think we'd let Chinese government officials investigate if the tables were turned?
There was communications, and the filter was in both directions.
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And what is to say that the "animals" that got it, since it IS indeed close to the lab, got it from a leak at the lab..........or a worker at the lab got it and took it to the market. Too many possibilities. As said elsewhere, we may never know for absolute certain.
We will never know the truth, too much has been hidden or scrubbed and is now gone.
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Raccoon, dogs and red foxes aren't seafood. Perhaps a misspelling occurred in translation and the name of the facility is Wuhan See Food Market.
Racoon dogs...not racoons. But you're right
I was going to make a red fox casserole tonight, but now I’m having second thoughts.
There seems to be this feeling that somehow it’s better if the virus came from the market.
But it’s not. It’s worse.
China - and other countries in that part of the world - have these weird sketchy markets where they exchange all sorts of exotic and wild animals for food, governed by what appears to be little or no government regulation or inspection to limit the spread of disease. Say what you want about western domesticated livestock markets, but at least we have a much stronger idea of what pathogens might be lurking in our food, and some sense that there is an actual effort to control them.
If the virus came from lab work, that’s a thing can be controlled or prevented in the future. The same sloppy food industry that gave the world SARS in 2003, also gave us Covid in 2019. They don’t learn and they won’t change. It’s literally a global menace at this point.
If worldwide pandemics come from these traditional, largely unregulated markets, what is there to keep something like Covid (or worse) from happening again?
Why 'Wet Markets' Persisted In China Despite Disease And Hygiene Concerns
I'm not sure where you get that from. Maybe... but I just see people trying to be logical and correct misinformation being used for political propaganda.
Many international bodies, including the WHO have been raising this issue for a long time for this very reason. They can't do anything about it though.
I've been saying it since H1N1 was supposed to be a concern. It is not IF, it's WHEN it happens again will we be ready and smarter about it. It doesn't look like it now.
From the political press coverage and debates. People have been saying this probably came from the wet markets from the beginning, and that seemed like common sense in Spring 2020. But one side of the political spectrum sees that as somehow racist and the other side would prefer a nice, juicy, government/mad scientist conspiracy.