Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Suspect Identified in Ambush Shooting That Killed 2 Idaho Firefighters

8 hours ago

Will Valadao Spoil Trump’s Plan for July 4th ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Signing?

9 hours ago

Shaver Lake and Reedley 4th of July Shows Are Wednesday. Who Else Is Celebrating?

12 hours ago

Elon Musk Says Senate Bill Would Destroy Jobs and Harm US

12 hours ago

Israel Strikes Pound Gaza, Killing 60, Ahead of US Talks on Ceasefire

14 hours ago

Trump’s Administration Finds Harvard Violated Students’ Civil Rights, WSJ Reports

14 hours ago

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

3 days ago
New COVID Origins Data Suggests Pandemic Linked to Animals
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 2 years ago on
March 17, 2023

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

International scientists who examined previously unavailable genetic data from samples collected at a market close to where the first human cases of COVID-19 were detected in China said they found suggestions the pandemic originated from animals, not a lab.

Other experts have not yet verified their analysis, which also has not appeared so far in a peer-reviewed journal. How the coronavirus first started sickening people remains uncertain.

“These data do not provide a definitive answer to how the pandemic began, but every piece of data is important to moving us closer to that answer,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a Friday press briefing.

He also criticized China for not sharing the genetic information earlier, adding that “this data could have and should have been shared three years ago.”

The samples were collected from surfaces at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan after the first human cases of COVID-19 were found in late 2019.

Tedros said the genetic sequences were uploaded to the world’s biggest public virus database in late January by scientists at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; the data have since been removed from the database.

A French biologist spotted the information by chance while scouring the database and shared it with a group of scientists based outside China and looking into the origins of the coronavirus.

Genetic sequencing data showed that some of the samples, which were known to be positive for the coronavirus, also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs, indicating the animals may have been infected by the virus, according to the scientists. Their analysis was first reported in The Atlantic.

“There’s a good chance that the animals that deposited that DNA also deposited the virus,” said Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who was involved in analyzing the data. “If you were to go and do environmental sampling in the aftermath of a zoonotic spillover event … this is basically exactly what you would expect to find.”

Ray Yip, an epidemiologist and founding member of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control ffice in China, said that even though the new findings weren’t definitive, they were significant.

“The market environmental sampling data published by China CDC is by far the strongest evidence to support animal origins,” Yip told the AP in an email. He was not connected to the new analysis.

Scientists have been looking for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic since the virus first emerged, but that search has been complicated by factors including the massive surge of human infections in the pandemic’s first two years and an increasingly bitter political dispute.

It took virus experts more than a dozen years to pinpoint the animal origin of SARS, a related virus.

Humans May Have Brought Virus to Market

The researchers say their analysis is the first solid indication that there may have been wildlife infected with the coronavirus at the market. Some of the samples with raccoon dog DNA were collected from a stall that tested positive for COVID-19 and was known to be involved in the wildlife trade, Goldstein said.

But it is also possible that humans might have first brought the virus to the market and infected the raccoon dogs, or that infected humans happened to leave traces of the virus near the animals.

After scientists in the group contacted the China CDC, they say, the sequences were pulled from the global virus database. Researchers are puzzled as to why data on the samples collected over three years ago wasn’t made public sooner.

Earlier this week, some of the scientists presented their findings to an advisory group the World Health Organization has tasked with investigating COVID’s origins, Goldstein confirmed.

Mark Woolhouse, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Edinburgh, said it will be crucial to see how the genetic sequences from the raccoon dogs match up to what’s known about the historic evolution of the COVID-19 virus.

He said that if the analysis shows the animal viruses have earlier origins than the ones that infected people, “that’s probably as good evidence as we can expect to get that this was a spillover event in the market.”

After a weeks-long visit to China to study the pandemic’s origins, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that COVID most probably jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility of a lab origin as “extremely unlikely.”

But the U.N. health agency backtracked the following year, saying “key pieces of data” were still missing.

In recent months, WHO director Tedros has said all hypotheses remained on the table, while he and senior officials pleaded with China to share more data about their COVID-19 research.

The China CDC scientists who previously analyzed the samples published a paper as a preprint in February. Their analysis suggested that humans brought the virus to the market, not animals, implying that the virus originated elsewhere.

The paper did not mention that animal genetic material was found in samples that tested positive for COVID-19, and the authors didn’t upload the raw data until March. Gao Fu, the former head of the China CDC and lead author of the paper, didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Wuhan, the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected, is home to several labs involved in collecting and studying coronaviruses, fueling theories that the virus may have leaked from one.

In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Energy had assessed “with low confidence” that the virus had leaked from a lab. But others in the U.S. intelligence community disagree, believing it more likely it first came from animals. Experts say the true origin of the pandemic may not be known for many years — if ever.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Clovis Police Seek Public’s Help in Finding Missing 82-Year-Old Woman

DON'T MISS

Fresno Woman Killed in Head-On Collision, CHP Investigating

DON'T MISS

Musk Vows to Punish Lawmakers Who Back Trump’s Spending Bill

DON'T MISS

Fresno Man Sentenced to Nearly 6 Years for $4.2 Million Tech Startup Fraud

DON'T MISS

Bryan Kohberger Pleads Guilty in Murders of Four Idaho Students, ABC News Reports

DON'T MISS

Wildfire Near Lake Madera Country Estates Burns 12 Acres, Now 100% Contained

DON'T MISS

Fresno County CHP Arrest Two in Interstate 5 Drug, Gun, and Counterfeit Money Bust

DON'T MISS

California Seizes Over 600,000 Pounds of Illegal Fireworks. Newsom Calls for Safe Celebrations

DON'T MISS

Where Trade Talks Stand With Major US Partners Ahead of Tariffs-Hike Deadline

DON'T MISS

Labor Icon Huerta Breaks Ground on Fresno Park Bearing Her Name

UP NEXT

935 People Killed in Israeli Strikes on Iran, Official Says

UP NEXT

Will Valadao Spoil Trump’s Plan for July 4th ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Signing?

UP NEXT

US Revokes Visas for Bob Vylan After Music Duo’s Glastonbury Chants

UP NEXT

Israel Acknowledges Palestinian Civilians Harmed at Gaza Aid Sites, Says ‘Lessons Learned’

UP NEXT

Israel Faces Genocide Accusations Amid Gaza Food Aid Killings

UP NEXT

Iran-Linked Hackers May Target US Firms and Critical Infrastructure, US Government Warns

UP NEXT

Israel Strikes Pound Gaza, Killing 60, Ahead of US Talks on Ceasefire

UP NEXT

US to Restart Trade Negotiations With Canada Immediately, White House Says

UP NEXT

Trump to Sign Order Related to Syria Sanctions Easing, CBS News Reports

UP NEXT

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

Fresno Man Sentenced to Nearly 6 Years for $4.2 Million Tech Startup Fraud

6 hours ago

Bryan Kohberger Pleads Guilty in Murders of Four Idaho Students, ABC News Reports

6 hours ago

Wildfire Near Lake Madera Country Estates Burns 12 Acres, Now 100% Contained

6 hours ago

Fresno County CHP Arrest Two in Interstate 5 Drug, Gun, and Counterfeit Money Bust

7 hours ago

California Seizes Over 600,000 Pounds of Illegal Fireworks. Newsom Calls for Safe Celebrations

7 hours ago

Where Trade Talks Stand With Major US Partners Ahead of Tariffs-Hike Deadline

7 hours ago

Labor Icon Huerta Breaks Ground on Fresno Park Bearing Her Name

7 hours ago

DOJ Announces Arrest, Indictments in North Korean IT Worker Scheme

7 hours ago

Fresno Man Arrested in Clovis for Sex-Related Crimes Against Minor

7 hours ago

Dyer’s Lobbying Works. Fresno Gets $100M for Downtown From State

7 hours ago

Clovis Police Seek Public’s Help in Finding Missing 82-Year-Old Woman

The Clovis Police Department is asking for the public’s help in locating an at-risk missing adult last seen on Thursday. Pathmani Goonawarde...

5 hours ago

Clovis Police are searching for Pathmani Goonawardena, 82, who went missing nearly three weeks ago and was last seen driving a white Volvo near Copper and Auberry, possibly en route to Coarsegold. (CHP)
5 hours ago

Clovis Police Seek Public’s Help in Finding Missing 82-Year-Old Woman

fresno
5 hours ago

Fresno Woman Killed in Head-On Collision, CHP Investigating

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk attend a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025. (Reuters File)
6 hours ago

Musk Vows to Punish Lawmakers Who Back Trump’s Spending Bill

6 hours ago

Fresno Man Sentenced to Nearly 6 Years for $4.2 Million Tech Startup Fraud

Bryan Koberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students, listens during a hearing to overturn his grand jury indictment in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., October 26, 2023. (Reuters File)
6 hours ago

Bryan Kohberger Pleads Guilty in Murders of Four Idaho Students, ABC News Reports

The Blanca Fire, burning 12 acres northwest of Lake Madera Country Estates in Madera County, remains active with 0% containment and no reported injuries or structural damage as the cause is under investigation as of Monday, June 30, 2025. (CalFire)
6 hours ago

Wildfire Near Lake Madera Country Estates Burns 12 Acres, Now 100% Contained

Fresno County CHP arrested two on Interstate 5 after finding about one kilogram of suspected cocaine, a loaded ghost gun, and counterfeit money during a vehicle search on Sunday, June 29, 2025. (CHP)
7 hours ago

Fresno County CHP Arrest Two in Interstate 5 Drug, Gun, and Counterfeit Money Bust

Gov. Newsom warns Californians to celebrate the Fourth of July safely, emphasizing zero tolerance for illegal fireworks which have surged to over 600,000 pounds seized this year. (Shutterstock)
7 hours ago

California Seizes Over 600,000 Pounds of Illegal Fireworks. Newsom Calls for Safe Celebrations

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend