Comment by University of Utah Health

An international team of 18 researchers, including a scientist at University of Utah Health, have determined that the earliest cases of COVID-19 in humans arose at a wholesale fish market in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. They linked these cases to bats, foxes and other live mammals infected with the virus sold in the market either for consumption as meat or for their fur. [...] The only areas where the virus was spreading in December 2019 were in neighborhoods within a half-mile of the market. Previously, some researchers had suggested that the virus was brought into the market from elsewhere in the city and spread among its patrons. Instead, the new findings strongly suggest that the virus originated in the market via live animal sales, and slowly spreading from there into nearby neighborhoods and then the city at large.