A seafood seller from Wuhan is the first case of covid, according to ‘Science’

The origin of covid still remains a mystery to scientists and a major source of tension between China and the United States. The most repeated hypotheses are that the virus escaped from a laboratory or that the start was in the Wuhan live animal market.

Following this line, a new study published in the magazine Science points out that the first case was that of a seafood vendor from Wuhan Market, which started with symptoms on Dec 11, 2019.

Rebuild the chronology

Michael Worobey, author of the paper and scientist in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, has reconstructed what happened between December 2019 and January 2020. The timeline you have drawn places the first cases in the live animal market from Wuhan, specifically in the area where raccoon dogs were caged.

Worobey ensures that there is strong evidence that the origin of the pandemic is in the market, since the first cases are linked to that place. “In this city of 11 million people, half of the first cases are related to a site the size of a soccer field “& rdquor ;, explained the expert in ‘The New York Times‘.

WHO’s confusion

Related news

A team of WHO experts He spent four weeks in and around Wuhan to establish the origin of the virus. The report explained that it was probably transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, but further investigation was needed.

Furthermore, they pointed out that the first case was a accountant who lived far from Wuhan, whose symptoms appeared on December 16, several days after what was initially known. The confusion was due to a dental problem the patient had on December 8.