The location of early coronavirus infections in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, suggests the virus most likely spread to humans from a market where wild and domestically farmed animals were sold and butchered, according to a peer-reviewed article published Thursday in the journal Science that is the latest salvo in the debate over how the pandemic began.
Tracker: U.S. coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations
The article, by University of Arizona evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey — a specialist in the origins of viral epidemics — does not purport to answer all the questions about the pandemic’s origins, nor is it likely to quell speculation the virus might have emerged somehow from risky laboratory research.
Worobey has been open to the theory of a “lab leak.” He was one of the 18 scientists who wrote a much-publicized letter to Science in May calling for an investigation of all possible sources of the virus, including a laboratory accident. But he now contends the geographic pattern of early cases strongly supports the hypothesis that the virus came from an infected animal at the Huanan Seafood Market.
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Worobey notes that more than half of the earliest documented illnesses from the virus were among people with a direct connection to the market, and argues this was not merely the result of the early focus on the market as a potential source of the outbreak. He concludes that the first patient known to fall ill with the virus was actually a female seafood vendor at the market who became symptomatic on Dec. 11, 2019.
That contradicts a report earlier this year from investigators for the World Health Organization and China, who concluded that the first patient was a 41-year-old accountant with no connection to the market who became sick on Dec. 8. But Worobey said the accountant’s medical records reveal he visited the dentist that day to deal with retained baby teeth that needed to be pulled, but did not show symptoms from the coronavirus until Dec. 16, and was hospitalized six days after that.
The stealthy nature of the virus, which can spread asymptomatically, makes it highly likely that the pathogen began to spread many weeks before any of the cases that were identified. But Worobey said the locations and occupations of the first known patients point to a market origin, with the virus radiating outward into the sprawling city of 11 million.
“It becomes almost impossible to explain that pattern if that epidemic didn’t start there,” Worobey said in an interview.
Geography has been central to theories about the origin of the virus. Wuhan is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers study and conduct experiments upon coronaviruses that circulate abundantly in bats in central and southern China. The institute has been a focus of those who argue that an accidental leak from one of its research labs is the most likely explanation for the spillover of the virus into humans.
The Huanan Seafood market is many miles, and located across the Yangtze River, from the virology institute. Few of the early documented cases were anywhere near the laboratory. A second laboratory studying coronaviruses at the Wuhan CDC, which oversaw the city’s coronavirus response, relocated in late 2019 to a spot close to the market.
Worobey’s article immediately drew skeptical responses from two prominent scientists who, like Worobey, have been deeply engaged in the debate over the most likely scenario for the start of the pandemic.
“It is based on fragmentary information and to a large degree, hearsay,” David A. Relman, a professor of microbiology at Stanford University, said in an email after reading an embargoed copy. “In general, there is no way of verifying much of what he describes, and then concludes.”
Jesse Bloom, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said the quality of the data from China on early coronavirus infections is simply too poor to support any conclusion.
“I don’t feel like anything can be concluded with high or even really modest confidence about the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, simply because the underlying data are so limited,” Bloom said. He contends that genetic evidence from early virus samples points to the market as a superspreader event, but not as the location of the first set of infections.
Bloom has been among those sounding alarms about what he feels is overly risky research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That research has generated tremendous controversy, with some Republican lawmakers and conservative media figures focusing on funding for some of the experiments, funneled via a nonprofit group, EcoHealth Alliance, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is led by President Biden’s chief pandemic medical adviser, Anthony S. Fauci.
Worobey’s paper also drew strong praise from those favoring the natural zoonosis theory.
“Mike’s piece shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that in fact the Huanan Market was the epicenter of the outbreak,” said Robert F. Garry Jr., a virologist at Tulane University and one of the most vocal proponents of the zoonosis hypothesis.
Tracker: U.S. coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations
The article, by University of Arizona evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey — a specialist in the origins of viral epidemics — does not purport to answer all the questions about the pandemic’s origins, nor is it likely to quell speculation the virus might have emerged somehow from risky laboratory research.
Worobey has been open to the theory of a “lab leak.” He was one of the 18 scientists who wrote a much-publicized letter to Science in May calling for an investigation of all possible sources of the virus, including a laboratory accident. But he now contends the geographic pattern of early cases strongly supports the hypothesis that the virus came from an infected animal at the Huanan Seafood Market.
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Worobey notes that more than half of the earliest documented illnesses from the virus were among people with a direct connection to the market, and argues this was not merely the result of the early focus on the market as a potential source of the outbreak. He concludes that the first patient known to fall ill with the virus was actually a female seafood vendor at the market who became symptomatic on Dec. 11, 2019.
That contradicts a report earlier this year from investigators for the World Health Organization and China, who concluded that the first patient was a 41-year-old accountant with no connection to the market who became sick on Dec. 8. But Worobey said the accountant’s medical records reveal he visited the dentist that day to deal with retained baby teeth that needed to be pulled, but did not show symptoms from the coronavirus until Dec. 16, and was hospitalized six days after that.
The stealthy nature of the virus, which can spread asymptomatically, makes it highly likely that the pathogen began to spread many weeks before any of the cases that were identified. But Worobey said the locations and occupations of the first known patients point to a market origin, with the virus radiating outward into the sprawling city of 11 million.
“It becomes almost impossible to explain that pattern if that epidemic didn’t start there,” Worobey said in an interview.
Geography has been central to theories about the origin of the virus. Wuhan is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers study and conduct experiments upon coronaviruses that circulate abundantly in bats in central and southern China. The institute has been a focus of those who argue that an accidental leak from one of its research labs is the most likely explanation for the spillover of the virus into humans.
The Huanan Seafood market is many miles, and located across the Yangtze River, from the virology institute. Few of the early documented cases were anywhere near the laboratory. A second laboratory studying coronaviruses at the Wuhan CDC, which oversaw the city’s coronavirus response, relocated in late 2019 to a spot close to the market.
Worobey’s article immediately drew skeptical responses from two prominent scientists who, like Worobey, have been deeply engaged in the debate over the most likely scenario for the start of the pandemic.
“It is based on fragmentary information and to a large degree, hearsay,” David A. Relman, a professor of microbiology at Stanford University, said in an email after reading an embargoed copy. “In general, there is no way of verifying much of what he describes, and then concludes.”
Jesse Bloom, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said the quality of the data from China on early coronavirus infections is simply too poor to support any conclusion.
“I don’t feel like anything can be concluded with high or even really modest confidence about the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, simply because the underlying data are so limited,” Bloom said. He contends that genetic evidence from early virus samples points to the market as a superspreader event, but not as the location of the first set of infections.
Bloom has been among those sounding alarms about what he feels is overly risky research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That research has generated tremendous controversy, with some Republican lawmakers and conservative media figures focusing on funding for some of the experiments, funneled via a nonprofit group, EcoHealth Alliance, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is led by President Biden’s chief pandemic medical adviser, Anthony S. Fauci.
Worobey’s paper also drew strong praise from those favoring the natural zoonosis theory.
“Mike’s piece shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that in fact the Huanan Market was the epicenter of the outbreak,” said Robert F. Garry Jr., a virologist at Tulane University and one of the most vocal proponents of the zoonosis hypothesis.