Coronavirus DIDN’T start in Wuhan wet market but ‘super spreader’ brought it there, Chinese researchers claim
WUHAN wet market was not the origin of the coronavirus pandemic as previously thought, it's been claimed.
Theorists say a super-spreader visited the Chinese city and sparked the Covid-19 outbreak which swept the world and has killed over 300,000 people.
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Genetic evidence showed confirmed the virus originated in Chinese bats before it jumped to humans, but where exactly this happened is unknown.
Originally Chinese authorities said the first cases of the virus emerged at the local seafood market which led to speculation the coronavirus may have made the transition to humans there.
But a new investigation of the animals being sold there has ruled that out.
'NO LINK'
The Chinese Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took samples of the products in the market and found none had Covid-19.
This led to the new theory that someone visiting the market had already contracted COVID-19 and became a super-spreader - giving it to shoppers and venders.
The Chinese CDC concluded "the the wet market was a victim of the virus" rather than the virus being transmitted from animals on sale.
Most of the original 41 virus cases reported to the World Health Organisation in December were linked to the 116 acres market.
The search for the source of the virus has become more complex since US-China relations have soured following President Trump's claim that the virus originated in a laboratory.
But China has responded to these allegations with its own conspiracy theory asserting that American soldiers may have been responsible for the outbreak.
Despite this, the UK ministers are reportedly "no longer discounting" the possibility the virus escaped from lab.
It comes after landmark scientific study by biologists Yujia Alina Chan and Benjamin Deverman from the Broad Institute carried out the new research alongside Shing Hei Zhan from the University of British Columbia concluded the virus did not come from the market.
They found evidence suggesting the virus was "pre-adapted to human transmission".
On Monday Security Adviser Robert O'Brien compared China's response to the coronavirus pandemic to the Soviet Union's response to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster decades ago.
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