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Comment by James Wood

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Infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge; co-director of Cambridge Infectious Diseases
The work provides very strong evidence for wildlife stalls in the Hunan Seafood Market in Wuhan being a hotspot for the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic. The viruses that were detected in samples collected by Chinese workers from the market on or after 1st January 2020 showed the same range of viral variation in them that had been previously reported for the human cases sampled early in the course of the pandemic emergence; this variation was found to co-exist with the presence of DNA from wildlife species, such as Racoon Dogs. This evidence is entirely consistent with a wildlife market origin for the pandemic emergence.
AI Verified (Sep 19, 2024)
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James Wood, expert reaction published by the Science Media Centre, September 19, 2024.
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The clustering of early cases around the Huanan market reflects where the COVID-19 virus emerged, not just where testing looked
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AI Verified The quote is directly about the statement’s core issue: Wood says the Huanan market was a "hotspot for the emergence" and that the evidence is consistent with a wildlife-market origin, which makes a stance on whether the early clustering reflects true emergence—not merely where testing occurred—substantially more likely, even though he notes the samples do not provide direct proof because they were collected after the market closed. ([sciencemediacentre.org](https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-on-genetic-tracing-at-the-huanan-seafood-market-to-investigate-possible-covid-virus-origins/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
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AI Verified He supports it: he says the market’s wildlife stalls were a "hotspot for the emergence" and that the findings are "entirely consistent with a wildlife market origin for the pandemic emergence," which strongly implies the early clustering around Huanan reflects the outbreak’s origin, not merely where investigators looked. He does note a limitation—that the sampling dates mean this is not direct proof. ([sciencemediacentre.org](https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-on-genetic-tracing-at-the-huanan-seafood-market-to-investigate-possible-covid-virus-origins/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago

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AI Verified Verified: the Science Media Centre page dated September 19, 2024 introduces the statement as being from Prof James Wood and contains the submitted passage verbatim as part of his quoted remarks on the study. The stored author, date, quote text, and source URL match the fetchable source. ([sciencemediacentre.org](https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-on-genetic-tracing-at-the-huanan-seafood-market-to-investigate-possible-covid-virus-origins/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
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