Three new, convincing studies support the original thesis that the coronavirus designated COVID-19 originated in the wet market named Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the mega city Wuhan (population 11 million people) in China. This is what I documented in my book, Moses Predicted COVID-19.
These studies involved multiple scientists including some from other countries besides the U.S., including one from China. Three Americans involved in both studies were Dr. Michael Worebey of Arizona State University, virologist Joel Wertheim of the University of California at San Diego, and virologist Kristian Andersen at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Both studies were published online on February 25.
COVID-19 is believed to have originated in November, 2019, and probably in China, though Chinese authorities have argued against that. Soon after this viral pandemic took hold of the world, three theories became most prominent about how and where the virus originated. The main one has been that proposed by these three studies, that it occurred at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan and that the virus was transmitted from a live animal to a human being.
Wet markets are prevalent in China and much of southeast Asia. Their merchants sell food including live animals that they keep in cages and then slaughter them on site as “fresh meat.” The place is called a “wet market” because water is sprayed constantly on the concrete floor and other surfaces to wash off the blood from preparing the animals.
Many Asians dismiss the American concept of meat sold in supermarkets because much of it has been frozen. These Asians prefer fresh meat slaughtered immediately because they believe it tastes better. They also like the exotic meats of certain wild animals. Yet some of these animals are considered endangered species. Furthermore, some of them carry more pathogens than other animals do, especially domesticated animals. All this increases the risk of zoonosis, which is usually the transmission of dangerous pathogens from animals to humans rather than vice versa.
The second most prominent theory about the origin of COVID-19 is that it was an accidental leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is a high-level laboratory devoted entirely to studying zoonosis, mostly viruses in bats. The WIV is located about eight miles from the Huanan Seafood Market. The lab authorities vehemently deny that this virus could have escaped from their facility.
A third theory and much lesser theory of COVID’s origin, which is advocated mostly by fringe conspiracy folks, is that the Chinese military developed this virus and purposely released it upon the Chinese population, which really is an absurd idea. It is believed this could have happened at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control which is located about a block away from the Huanan market.
It originally was believed that the animal that transmitted the virus to a human was a bat, since bat meat was sold at the Huanan market for human consumption. Dr. Andersen says racoon dogs were sold in a section of the Huanan market where positive samples of COVID were later collected by researchers, and racoon dogs do harbor coronaviruses. More than a thousand samples taken from the cages and booths where wild, live animals were kept at the Huanan market tested positive for COVID.
Dr. Andersen suggests that raccoon dogs may have been infected on a farm, maybe by bats, and then sold to the Huanan market in November or December, 2019. The virus may have jumped to handlers or buyers. And then the virus spread to other people.
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