The virus likely originated in bats but may have been able to hide out in the pangolin, before spreading from that animal to humans. According to The New York Times, it may be one of the most trafficked animals in the world. The ant-eating pangolin, a small, scaly mammal, has also been implicated in the spread of SARS-CoV-2. "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," wrote the collaboration of researchers from institutions across the US, UK and Australia. Importantly, the study also demonstrated the virus can get into and hijack cells the same way SARS did, using a human receptor known as ACE2.Ī paper published in the journal Nature Medicine on March 17 assessed the genome of the virus in great detail, coming to similar conclusions to the preprint, categorically stating that it arose due to natural evolution. They discovered the genetic similarities run deep: The virus shares 80% of its genes with the previous SARS virus and 96% of its genes with bat coronaviruses. The market appears to be an integral piece of the puzzle, but research into the likely origin and connecting a "patient zero" to the initial spread is ongoing.Ī group of Chinese scientists uploaded a paper to preprint website biorXiv, having studied the viral genetic code and compared it to the previous SARS coronavirus and other bat coronaviruses. A majority of the people confirmed to have come down with the coronavirus in the early days of the outbreak had been to the Huanan Seafood marketplace in previous weeks. Live animal markets have been implicated in the origin and spread of viral diseases in past epidemics. Long COVID Symptoms May Depend on the Variant You Contracted.Free COVID Antiviral Pills: New Official Website Helps Find Them.I'm Eligible for a Second COVID Vaccine Booster.Read more: Coronavirus is a pandemic: What that means for you But it's a way to describe what's happening and more succinctly understand the urgency of the situation. And the risk of being infected doesn't exponentially increase now that the word "pandemic" is being used. It hasn't become more dangerous and hasn't mutated to infect people more quickly. What does this all mean? The COVID-19 virus itself didn't change. Unlike COVID-19, it's been circulating in the community for centuries and there's some natural immunity to it, plus we know so much about it we can protect ourselves against common strains. For example, influenza (the flu) infects a lot of people every year and can be found across the world. The "new" is key here, because many diseases persist in the population and spread each year. In the simplest terms, a pandemic can be defined as "a worldwide outbreak of a new disease." Both the CDC and the WHO have different definitions, and if you look in a dictionary, you may find something different again.
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