We still don’t know the origins of the coronavirus. Here are 4 scenarios.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... 48368741AA
Earlier this week, the World Health Organization released a report from a team of international researchers that traveled to China to investigate four possible scenarios in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus might have caused the initial outbreak. In the days since, however, world governments have expressed concern that the investigators lacked access to complete data, while scientists say that the report has shed little light on how the virus got jumpstarted.
That’s unsurprising given that it typically takes years to trace a virus back to its roots—if it’s possible at all, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center. But in this case, she says, “I think we do have enough evidence to say that some are more likely than others.”
![Snip :snippity:](./images/smilies/snippity.gif)
In the absence of a smoking gun showing that bats passed the virus directly to humans, scientists believe the more likely theory is that the virus first traveled through another animal, such as a mink or a pangolin. Unlike bats, these animals have regular contact with humans—particularly if they’re being raised on a farm or trafficked in the illegal wildlife trade.
If the virus jumped first to another animal, that might also explain how it adapted to be harmful to humans—although Robertson says that the virus likely wouldn’t have had to change much. Genomic analyses suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is a generalist virus rather than one specifically adapted to humans, explaining why it can easily jump among pangolins, mink, cats, and other species. [Dogs, too.]