The Search For The Origin Of COVID

Around December 2019, COVID-19 started to spread in Wuhan, China and soon affected the whole world. People wonder to this day, how it happened and where the Coronavirus comes from. Is the origin in a laboratory? Or did animals transmit it to humans?

China remained silent about its surging epidemic until January 20st, 2020. Earlier, the government of China informed the WHO about a ‘’severe pneumonia of unknown aetiology’’. Chinese citizens spoke about the beginning of COVID-19, and that at first everything stayed normal. One Chinese man told the Financial Times:

Weeks passed until the government announced that the virus could spread easily between humans. Already on January 13th, the Coronavirus was confirmed to have spread beyond China into other countries. One day later, the high risk of the virus was determined to be able of human-to-human transfer. The first death was reported on January 11th, a 61-year-old man. The first death outside of China was reported on February 2nd in the Philippines. Not only did the virus spread faster due to the ignorance of the government, it was also the Chinese new year. Especially one crucial dinner for Chinese new year was not cancelled in the surge of the novel virus, a dinner that more than 40'000 families attended. It was impossible to determine the first patient who was infected with the Coronavirus, so this person could have possibly infected dozen more people without being aware of the disease. Even doctors and officials that believed the situation to be far more dangerous than expected by the public could not talk until the Chinese government gave permission.

One person, who advises the State Council on the public health subject, told the Financial Times:

The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern on January 30th. It was already when the virus had spread beyond the borders into other countries that China reacted with strict lockdowns in the whole country. Wuhan was closed off from the outer world, plane flights were cancelled and other public transport was cut off. Europe faced the first major Coronavirus disease outbreak in Italy in late February, and soon spread further to Switzerland, Austria and other European countries.

There are two predominantly theories about the origin of COVID-19. However, it is hard to determine which was the real cause of the pandemic.

Animal-to-human transmission: Theory one says that the Coronavirus was contracted from animals, specifically bats. Likely is a direct zoonotic spread, what means the bats spread it directly without an intermediate host (from bats to another animal and lastly to humans) to human kind. Very likely, on the contrary, is that there was an intermediate host before the transmission to humans.

A report by the WHO on the origin of SARS-CoV 2 has found that most cases reported in Wuhan in December 2019 (the earliest confirmed was on December 8th) were concentrated around the central districts, where the Huanan market can be found as well. The Huanan market is believed to be the first place where COVID-19 was exposed. However, early cases not in association to the market led to the belief that the market was not the origin of the outbreak. George Fu Gao, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in May 2020, “At first, we assumed the seafood market might have the virus, but now the market is more like a victim. The novel Coronavirus had existed long before.”

Relatives to SARS-CoV 2 were found in several south east asian countries, including Laos, where a genetically close horseshoe bat coronavirus has been discovered. This discovery is another indicator that the lab-leak theory is not as accurate as it seems. Anyway, it does not explain how the viruses arrived in Wuhan. Until the origin is found, only theories can explain the ongoing situation.

Related posts:

Productivity is a huge stumbling block for many people. It seems so simple on paper — work hard every day, get a lot done, and succeed in business. More often than not, it just doesn’t happen that…

AI-enabled sports cameras are revolutionizing the analysis of on field player performance. The Device Chronicle spoke to Thomas Hagen, Jens Christian Hillerup and Rasmus Røge from the engineering…

Roberta Tassi introduced us to the service design tools platform, which she has been working on since 2009 when she began the project as part of her graduation thesis. The platform was launched in…