New evidence that raccoon dogs were at the Chinese market where Covid is suspected to have first infected humans has reignited debate over the origin of the pandemic. theSun theSundaily racoon Covid China Wuhan news
People wearing face masks walk on a street market, following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 8, 2021. REUTERSPIX: New evidence that raccoon dogs were at the Chinese market where Covid is suspected to have first infected humans has reignited debate over the origin of the pandemic.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on Covid, said the new data “doesn’t give us the answer of how the pandemic began, but it does provide more clues”. They managed to download the data before it was removed from GISAID at the request of the Chinese researchers who first posted it.
That means they could have acted as an intermediary host between humans and bats, in which Covid is suspected to have originated.However because the samples were taken from sites at the market and not directly from the animals, it was not possible to prove the raccoon dogs had Covid. Even if it could be proved that the raccoon dogs were infected, it would be difficult to show they gave Covid to humans — and not the other way around.
US President Joe Biden signed a law earlier this week declassifying intelligence material on the subject, after his energy department concluded with “low confidence” that the virus probably came from a lab.After being informed of the new Huanan samples, the WHO again called on China to release all its data from the early days of the pandemic.
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