A WILDLIFE MARKET IN WUHAN
The most common theory is that the virus leaped to humans from animals – specifically bats – in a live animal market in Wuhan.
A menagerie of live animals including koalas, rats and wolf pups were available at the Huanan Seafood Market in central Wuhan – the outbreak’s epicentre.
The Huanan market was a hotspot with locals, who could choose to buy their meat ‘warm’ meaning it had been slaughtered just moment prior.
The market was shut on January 1 after dozens of workers there had contracted the disease
Most research has pointed to the virus coming from bats at the market, with scientists saying the COVID-19 genome is 96 per cent similar to one commonly found in bats.
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the People’s Liberation Army and Institut Pasteur of Shanghai came to the conclusion that the coronavirus may have come from bats.
In a statement, the team said: ‘The Wuhan coronavirus’ natural host could be bats… but between bats and humans there may be an unknown intermediate.
Research published in the Lancet also determined bats as the most probable original host of the virus after samples were taken from the lungs of nine patients in Wuhan.
The team suggested that bats passed the disease on to an ‘intermediate’ host which was at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan before being passed on to the ‘terminal host’ — humans.
A LAB IN WUHAN
UK ministers fear the coronavirus pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The UK’s emergency Cobra committee led by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said it will not rule out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.
The member of Cobra, which receives detailed classified briefings from the security services, said: ‘There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.’
Wuhan is home to the Institute of Virology, the most advanced laboratory of its type on the Chinese mainland.
Lab fears: A laboratory leak in Wuhan is believed to have caused the coronavirus pandemic
The £30million institute, based ten miles from the infamous wildlife market, is supposed to be one of the most secure virology units in the world.
Scientists at the institute were the first to suggest that the virus’s genome was 96 per cent similar to one commonly found in bats.
There have been unverified local reports that workers at the institute became infected after being sprayed by blood, and then carried the infection into the local population.
When the wildlife market was closed in January, a report appeared in the Beijing News identifying Huang Yanling, a researcher at the Institute of Virology, as ‘patient zero’ – the first person to be infected.
The claim was described as ‘fake information’ by the institute, which said Huang left in 2015, was in good health and had not been diagnosed with Covid-19.
A second institute in the city, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control – which is barely three miles from the market – is also believed to have carried out experiments on animals such as bats to examine the transmission of corona viruses.
IN US TROOPS
Despite early admissions that the virus began in the city of Wuhan, China later back-tracked – even going so far as to suggest American troops had brought the infection over after visiting the province.
Lijian Zhao, a prominent official within the Chinese Foreign Ministry, tweeted out the claim on March 12 while providing no evidence to substantiate it.
‘When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals,’ he wrote.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused American military members of bringing the coronavirus to Wuhan
Referencing a military athletics tournament in Wuhan in October, which US troops attended, he wrote: ‘It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.
‘Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!’
In fact, America’s ‘patient zero’ was a man who travelled from China to Washington State on January 15. The case was confirmed by the CDC six days later.
Chinese has also tried to push the theory that the virus originated in Italy, the country with the most deaths, by distorting a quote from an Italian doctor who suggested the country’s first cases could have occurred much earlier than thought.
Giuseppe Remuzzi said he is investigating strange cases of pneumonia as far back as December and November, months before the virus was known to have spread.
Chinese state media widely reported his comments while also suggesting that the virus could have originated in Italy.
In fact, Remuzzi says, there can be no doubt it started in Wuhan – but may have spread out of the province and across the world earlier than thought.