U.S.-Funded Scientist Among Three Who Fell Ill Amid Early Covid Outbreak

> Two newly published studies take totally different approaches but arrive at the same conclusion: The Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, was most likely the epicenter for the coronavirus.

> “All eight COVID-19 cases detected prior to 20 December were from the western side of the market, where mammal species were also sold,” the study says. The proximity to five stalls that sold live or recently butchered animals was predictive of human cases.

> The researchers suggest that the first animal-to-human transmission probably happened around November 18, 2019, and it came from lineage B. They found the lineage B type only in people who had a direct connection to the Huanan market.

> “These findings indicate that it is unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 circulated widely in humans prior to November 2019 and define the narrow window between when SARS-CoV-2 first jumped into humans and when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported,” the study says. “As with other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 emergence likely resulted from multiple zoonotic events.”

If what you say is true, and COVID was spreading widely as early as August, then these previous papers in Science that claimed zoonotic spread specifically around Nov 18, 2019 must have been wildly off the mark. But Wikipedia cites these two studies as the primary evidence in favor of zoonotic origin.