E-Paper
Covid-19 origins reflect initial spread of SARS 17 years ago, says study
The paper was released on Wednesday ahead of peer review and is being prepared for submission to a journal for publication, one of the authors said.
Scientists have found out that the early Covid-19 cases traced to markets in China's Wuhan mirror the initial spread of SARS 17 years ago and came to the conclusion that an animal contagion is the most likely explanation for the pandemic’s genesis.
The epidemiological history of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is comparable to previous animal market-associated outbreaks of coronaviruses and offers a simple route for human exposure, Edward Holmes, Andrew Rambaut and 19 other researchers said in a review of the scientific evidence pertaining to the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins, reports Bloomberg.
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The paper was released on Wednesday ahead of peer review and is being prepared for submission to a journal for publication, one of the authors said. It gives a detailed explanation for SARS-CoV-2’s genetic signatures, early epidemiology and research undertaken at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “It’s the first really systematic sift through all the data,” Holmes, a laureate professor who studies evolutionary biology at the University of Sydney, said in an email, according to Bloomberg.
"There has been a lot of news coverage of Covid’s origins in recent months, much of it speculation and some of it simply misinformation. We thought it was important to go back to the core scientific data and clearly and calmly work through what it told us," he added.
