Thread by @Ayjchan

Possible ways for a virus with an ancestral origin in bats to have made its way to Wuhan.

It's good that scientists are finding more bat viruses related to SARS2 in South China/SE Asia, but it still doesn't identify the route by which SARS2 arrived in Wuhan.

Yes, it took about a decade to track the closest bat virus relatives to SARS1.

But only 2 months from isolating the virus to find the proximal animal source in Guangzhou in 2003, and only days in 2004.

https://twitter.com/drsanjaygupta/status/1439750478544478208

Read more here:

Despite less advanced technologies, Chinese investigators rapidly tracked down early cases, likely animal sources, and a well-substantiated path for SARS1 to have been introduced into human beings via the trade of infected animals.
ayjchan.medium.com/a-response-to-…

Scientists agree that an ancestral form of SARS-CoV-2 was in bats so it is unsurprising that related bat coronaviruses continue to be found in nature. The question is what was the journey that a bat virus ancestor took before becoming SARS-CoV-2 and starting an outbreak in Wuhan?

Despite today’s advanced technologies and extensive searches for an intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2, none of the tested market or Wuhan animals carried SARS-CoV-2 according to the China-WHO joint study report.

There is zero evidence that animal sellers at the Huanan seafood market had been frequently exposed to animals carrying SARSr-CoVs or that natural spillovers of SARSr-CoVs would be expected in Wuhan prior to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.