WHO investigators seek COVID-19’s wildlife origins

Researchers are trying to zero in on the origin of COVID-19, but many questions remain, even after international investigators traveled to China to gain a better understanding. Nature spoke to four members of the World Health Organization team that spent a month delving into the origins of the pandemic to see what they’ve learned and what they still want to know.

The team “concluded that the virus probably originated in bats and passed to people through an intermediate animal,” Nature reports. “But fundamental questions remain about when, where and how SARS-CoV-2 first infected people.”

What that intermediate animal was remains a mystery, but it may have been a wild species sold in “wet markets.” Suspicion continues to focus on the Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan, but investigators remain unsure.

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