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In mid-January, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) went to the Wuhan epicenter in China to investigate how the corona pandemic emerged.
Although WHO experts cannot determine the origin of the virus, they agree that the virus likely spread from bats to an unknown mammal that later infected humans.
However, among WHO researchers, the dominant hypothesis is now that the virus first appeared in bats, either in southern China or other Southeast Asian countries, with which the virus spread to another animal. and humans, according to Danish TV 2.
Researchers indicate that the pandemic may not have originated in China at all.
WHO: possible signs of major outbreaks in 2019
Cambodia and Thailand
Thea Kølsen Fischer, one of the researchers from the WHO team in Wuhan, says the following to Danish TV 2:
– We have discovered that the virus likely originally originated in horseshoe bats. This type of bat is found both in southeastern China, but is also found in other countries like Cambodia and Thailand, he says.
Over the past week, Thailand found a virus in cave horseshoe bats in the country, which is similar to SARS-CoV-2, Fischer says.
– There’s still a long way to go before we find the exact source, says Fischer, who is Professor of Viral Epidemics at the University of Copenhagen.
At the beginning of the epidemic, Chinese authorities said the virus had likely started in the Huanan seafood market, where wild animals were being sold.
It is not yet known whether the pandemic actually started in the Wuhan market. Chinese authorities have recently launched the theory that the virus may come from imported frozen seafood. This claim has been rejected by a large number of international experts.
According to Thea Kølsen Fischer, it is possible that the virus reached Wuhan through an animal that was originally sold in a market in Thailand and later sold in the market in Wuhan.
Another possibility is that a human being was infected in a market in Thailand and then traveled to Wuhan.
– A new discovery
In an interview with CNN in early February, Peter Ben Embarek, who heads the WHO group, said that they have now seen possible signs that the Covid-19 outbreak in December 2019 may have been more extensive than it actually is. they thought.
“The virus circulated a lot in Wuhan in December, which is a new discovery,” Embarek told the channel. December is considered the month in which the virus was first detected.
The Chinese authorities have given the WHO access to the 174 corona infections they recovered at the beginning of the outbreak in December 2019.
Now, however, Embarek believes that close to 1,000 people may have been infected with the coronavirus in December 2019.
– We haven’t done any modeling since. But we know from the infected population that about 15 percent of all cases of infection are severe cases and that the vast majority of cases are mild, he continues.
This is how they solve the crown puzzle
China denied access
Last week, however, WHO experts came out and called for more transparency from China in the search for the origin of the coronavirus.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that Chinese authorities refused to provide WHO investigators with data on the first cases of COVID-19 in China.
Among the data that the WHO did not have access to was data on the 174 corona-infected mentioned that they recovered at the beginning of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, the newspaper writes.
Instead, the Chinese offered WHO envoys their research and analysis notes. But they didn’t want to go out with the background material.
