According to research conducted in the United States, the first known COVID-19 case was a market vendor in the Chinese city of Wuhan, not an accountant who appeared to have no connection to the market but whose case contributed to speculation that the virus may have leaked from a lab.
The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is still unknown, and it’s a major source of friction between China and the US.
This year, a joint investigation by China and the World Health Organization (WHO) effectively ruled out the premise that COVID-19 was created in a lab, stating that the most plausible scenario was that it infected humans spontaneously, most likely through the wildlife trade.
In a joint report released in March, a WHO-led team of experts spent four weeks in and around Wuhan, China’s central city, with Chinese scientists, concluding that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was most likely transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, but that more research was needed.
According to Michael Worobey, head of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, the accountant, who was widely thought to be the first person to be infected with COVID-19, his first symptoms appeared on Dec. 16, several days later than previously thought, according to a study published in the journal Science on Thursday.
His uncertainty stemmed from a tooth issue he experienced on December 8.
“His symptoms appeared after many cases in Huanan Market workers, making a female seafood vendor there the first documented case, with illness beginning on December 11,” according to the report.
It claimed that the majority of early symptomatic cases were linked to the market, notably to the western section where raccoon dogs were confined, and that it gave solid proof of the pandemic’s beginning in a live-animal market.
Last month, the WHO proposed forming a new expert panel to look into the coronavirus’s origins.
