At the beginning of the 2000s, a coronavirus infecting bats jumped to mapache dogs and other wild mammals in southwest China. Some of those animals were sold in the markets, where the Coronavirus jumped again to humans. The result was the Pandemia of the Sars, which extended to 33 countries and claimed 774 lives. A few months later, scientists discovered the coronavirus in mammals known as palm civetas sold in a market in the center of the outbreak.
In a study published on Wednesday, a team of researchers compared the evolutionary history of the SAR with that of COVID 17 years later. The researchers analyzed the genomes of the two coronavirus caused by pandemics, along with 248 coronavirus related in bats and other mammals.
Jonathan Pekar, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Edinburgh and author of the new study, said the history of the two coronavirus followed parallel roads. “In my opinion, they are extraordinarily similar,” he said.
In boats, Dr. Pekar and his colleagues argue, a coronavirus jumped from bats to wild mammals in southwest China. In a short period of time, wildlife merchants, animals infected with hundreds of miles to the city’s markets and the virus highlighted humans.
“When you sell wildlife in the hearts of the cities, you will have pandemic from time to time,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Arizona and author of the new study.
The study lands at a tense political moment. Last month, the White House created a web page called “Laboratory escape: the true origin of Covid 19”, stating that the pandemic had a leg caused by a market spill but by an accident in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
On Friday, in the proposed budget, the White House described the escape of the laboratory as “confirmed” and justified a cut of $ 18 billion to the National Institutes of Health in part of what it described as the “inability of the agency to demonstrate that the Italology in suffering to the possible escape of Wuhan”.
The Chinese government responded with a flat denial that Covid had been captivated by a Wuhan laboratory escape and raised the possibility that the virus had come from a biodefense laboratory in the United States.
“A thorough and deep investigation should be carried out on the origins of the virus in the United States,” reads the statement.
Sergei Pond, a virologist at the University of Temple, said he did not consider the origin of established Covid. But he worried that the incendiary language of the two governments made scientists difficult to investigate and discuss Covid’s origin.
“If it were a tragic, you would have to laugh, it’s so faractic,” said Dr. Pound.
In the first weeks of the Covid Pandemia in early 2020, the statements circulated that the responsible virus, Sars-Cov-2, was a biological weapon created by the Chinese army. A group of scientists who analyzed the data available at the time rejected that idea. Allheheh could not rule out an accidental laboratory leak, they favored a natural origin of COVID.
With the passage of time, Dr. Worobey, who was not part of that group, was frustrated because there was still not enough evidence to choose one theory on the other. He signed an open letter with another 17 scientists who asked for more research to determine which explanation was most likely.
“For us, it seemed that there was much we don’t know, so we don’t rule out the idea of laboratory smooth,” said Dr. Worobey. “Let’s study it.”
When Dr. Worobey and other scientists began to study the origin of COVID, US intelligence agencies were also evaluating it. Its evaluations have mixed. The FBI favored an escape from the Wuhan Virology Institute with modern confidence; The CIA reached the same evaluation, with only low confidence. The energy department leans with little confidence in the virus that escapes a different laboratory in Wuhan. Other agencies are inclined towards a natural origin.
Agencies have not made their evidence or analysis public, so scientists cannot evaluate the basis of their conclusions. However, Dr. Worobey and other researchers have published a series of articles in scientific journals. Along the way, Dr. Worobey convinced himself that Pandemia Covid had begun in the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan.
“Scientifically, it is as clear as HIV or Spanish flu,” said Dr. Worobey, referring to two diseases whose origins has also studied.
For the new study, Dr. Worobey, Dr. Pekar and his colleagues compared the genomes of 250 coronavirus, using their similarities and genetic differences to determine their relationships. They were able to rebuild the history of the coronavirus that cause both SAR and COVID to be known as Sars-Cov and Sars-Cov-2.
The ancestors of both Coronavirus circulated in bats in much of China and neighboring countries for hundreds of thousands of years. In the last 50 years or so, their direct ancestors infected bats that lived in southwest China and northern Laos.
When the coronavirus infected bats, sometimes they ended up inside a cell with another coronavirus. When the cell made new viruses, it accidentally created hybrids that transported genetic material from both original coronavirus, a process known as recombination.
“These are not ancient events,” said David Rasmussen, virologist at the North Carolina State University who did not participate in the new study. “These things are happening all the time. These viruses are really mosaic.”
In 2001, only one year before the Pandemia of the Sars began in the city of Guangzhou, they discovered that the researchers underwent their last genetic mixture in bats. Only after the last recombination, the virus could have evolved to a human pathogen. And since Guangzhou is several hundred miles from the ancestral region of Sars-Cov, bats would not have a leg capable of bringing the virus to the city in such a short time.
On the other hand, the researchers generally agree, the ancestors of the wild mammals infected with SARS-COV that were then sold in markets around Guangzhou. A few months after the start of the Pandemia of the SARS, the researchers discovered Sars-Cov in Civets of Palm and other wild mammals for sale in the markets.
The researchers found a similar pattern when they turned to Sars-Cov-2, the cause of Covid. The last recombination in Bats Tok Place between 2012 and 2014, only five to seven years before the Covid pandemic, several hundred miles to the northwest, in Wuhan.
That was also a substantial deviation in the region where the ancestors of the virus had circulated. But it was comparable to the trip that Sars-Cov Tok, courtesy of the wildlife trade.
The proponents of laboratory can theories have highlighted the long distance between Wuhan and the locations where the closest relatives of Sars-Cov-2 have found the leg. If the bats could not fly to the region around Wuhan and infect the wild mammals there, they must have collected the coronavirus of the bats in the southwest of China and tinking with him in his laboratory, where they ranged there.
American scientists have criticized the Wuhan Institute of Virology for Laxas Safeguards in their Coronavirus experiments. But nobody has offered evidence that the parent of Sars-COV-2 was at the Wuhan Virology Institute before the pandemic. The new study of Dr. Worobey and his colleagues shows that bats of bats can travel long distances without the help of scientists, through wildlife trade.
The researchers argue that these findings are in accordance with the studies published in 2022, which indicated the Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan as the place where the Covid Pandemia begins. Wild mammals were sold there; There were many early cases of COVID, and Chinese researchers collected different strains of Sars-COV-2 with different mutations there. Dr. Worobey and his colleagues argued that the virus had spilled twice from wild mammals in the market.
Dr. Pond said the new study was consistent with the theory of a wildlife spill. But it does not consider the matter resolved. He pointed out that last year two statistics are broadcast with the model behind the study 2022. Dr. Worobey and a colleague have countered that criticism. “That debate is still on the wave,” said Dr. Pound.
Marc Eloit, former director of the Discovery Pathogen Laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said the new study was significant to provide a clear image of where Sars-Cov-2 comes from.
But he also observed that the coronavirus was markedly different from his closest relatives known in the bats. After separating from those viruses, Orgone’s recombination must have mutated to adapt well to spread in humans.
“I maintain that the possibility of a recombination event, whether accidental or deliberate, in a laboratory environment remains as plausible as the emergency hypothesis through an intermediate host in the market,” Dr. Ir. Eloit said.
Dr. Eloit and other scientists agree that finding an intermediate form of SARS-COV-2 in a wild mammal would be a convincing case for a natural spill. The Chinese authorities looked at some animals at the beginning of the pandemic and did not find the virus in them.
However, wildlife vendors in the Huanan market eliminated their animals from the positions before scientists could study them. And once China ended wildlife sales, farmers sacrificed their animals.
“There is a great missing piece, and you really can’t dance around it,” said Dr. Pound.
Stephen Goldstein, a geneticist at the University of Utah who did not participate in the new study, said the investigation served as a warning about the risk of a future coronavirus pandemic. Wild mammals sold in the markets anywhere in the region where Sars and Covid began their start, would become a vehicle for a city to hundreds of miles away. “The pieces of these viruses exist in all these places,” said Dr. Goldstein.
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