The studies were In “The clustering is very, very specific,” study co-author Kristian Andersen, a professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research, said Tuesday. The “extraordinary” pattern that emerged from mapping these cases was very clear, said another co-author, Michael Worobey, department head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. The researchers mapped the earliest cases that had no connection to the market, Worobey noted, and those people lived or worked in close proximity to the market. “This is an indication that the virus started spreading in people who worked at the market but then started that spread … into the surrounding local community as vendors went into local shops, infected people who worked in those shops,” Worobey said.The The authors believe that lineage A was introduced into humans from an animal within weeks or even days of the infection from lineage B. Lineage A was found in samples from humans who lived or stayed close to the market.”These findings indicate that it is unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 circulated widely in humans prior to November 2019 and define the narrow window between when SARS-CoV-2 first jumped into humans and when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported,” the study says. “As with other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 emergence likely resulted from multiple zoonotic events.” The likelihood that such a virus would emerge from two different events is low, acknowledged co-author Joel Wertheim, an associate adjunct professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego.”Now, I realize it sounds like I just said that a once-in-a-generation event happened twice in short succession, and pandemics are indeed rare, but once all the conditions are in place — that is a zoonotic virus capable of both human infection and human transmission that is in close proximity to humans — the barriers to spillover have been lowered such that multiple introductions, we believe, should actually be expected,” Wertheim said.Andersen said the studies don’t definitively disprove the lab leak theory but are extremely persuasive, so much so that he changed his mind about the virus’ origins.”I was q …
New studies agree that animals sold at Wuhan market are most likely what started Covid-19 pandemic – CNN
