Did COVID-19 begin with raccoon dogs?
The weight of evidence—scientific and epidemiological—points to a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2 with the epicenter at the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, China. Although the virus is endemic in bats, there’s little evidence for a direct jump of the virus from bats to humans in Wuhan. The most parsimonious hypothesis is that some other mammal intermediated the transmission.
While several animals known to be at the wet market have been suspects, the raccoon dog (which is not related to raccoons) is at the top of the list. Recent review of the data supports this inference:
“Today, mounting evidence from more than a dozen studies point to a person, or people, catching the virus from a wild animal or animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, the city at the epicentre of the outbreak. And the animal at the top of the list is the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides).
“There is a large focus on raccoon dogs,” says Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.
“Some scientists, including virologist Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney in Australia, have suspected raccoon dogs all along.”
*snip*
“Most researchers agree that SARS-CoV-2 probably originated in Rhinolophus bats living in Yunnan, southern China, in Laos, or other parts of southeast Asia, in part because that’s where the virus’s closest known relatives have been found.
“Scientists have been trying to figure out how the virus got from those regions to Wuhan — a journey of more than 1,000 kilometres — which is well outside the hotspots where these viruses circulate in bats.
“That’s why it is important to consider the geographic ranges of suspect intermediate animals to see whether they overlap with those bats, says Alex Crits-Christoph, a computational biologist at a non-profit organization, based in Baltimore, Maryland. Among the animals at the Huanan market, the ranges of wild raccoon dogs, civets, hoary bamboo rats and greater hog badger overlap with that of the bats. Fitting with this hypothesis, the mitochondrial DNA from raccoon dogs at the Huanan market did not match those from farmed animals in northeastern China, and were instead closer to wild-caught animals in central and southern China.”
Is this proof of a zoonotic origin? No. Is this proof that the pandemic began with a customer or vendor at the wet market who was exposed to an infected raccoon dog? No. Science doesn’t deal in proof, it deals in the weight of evidence. If you want metaphysical certitude, you are talking about religion, not science. The weight of scientific and epidemiological evidence as of now points strongly to a zoonotic origin, with a probable transmission via infected raccoon dogs.
Raccoon dogs and the origin of SARS-CoV-2
While several animals known to be at the wet market have been suspects, the raccoon dog (which is not related to raccoons) is at the top of the list. Recent review of the data supports this inference:
“Today, mounting evidence from more than a dozen studies point to a person, or people, catching the virus from a wild animal or animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, the city at the epicentre of the outbreak. And the animal at the top of the list is the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides).
“There is a large focus on raccoon dogs,” says Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.
“Some scientists, including virologist Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney in Australia, have suspected raccoon dogs all along.”
*snip*
“Most researchers agree that SARS-CoV-2 probably originated in Rhinolophus bats living in Yunnan, southern China, in Laos, or other parts of southeast Asia, in part because that’s where the virus’s closest known relatives have been found.
“Scientists have been trying to figure out how the virus got from those regions to Wuhan — a journey of more than 1,000 kilometres — which is well outside the hotspots where these viruses circulate in bats.
“That’s why it is important to consider the geographic ranges of suspect intermediate animals to see whether they overlap with those bats, says Alex Crits-Christoph, a computational biologist at a non-profit organization, based in Baltimore, Maryland. Among the animals at the Huanan market, the ranges of wild raccoon dogs, civets, hoary bamboo rats and greater hog badger overlap with that of the bats. Fitting with this hypothesis, the mitochondrial DNA from raccoon dogs at the Huanan market did not match those from farmed animals in northeastern China, and were instead closer to wild-caught animals in central and southern China.”
Is this proof of a zoonotic origin? No. Is this proof that the pandemic began with a customer or vendor at the wet market who was exposed to an infected raccoon dog? No. Science doesn’t deal in proof, it deals in the weight of evidence. If you want metaphysical certitude, you are talking about religion, not science. The weight of scientific and epidemiological evidence as of now points strongly to a zoonotic origin, with a probable transmission via infected raccoon dogs.
Raccoon dogs and the origin of SARS-CoV-2
“Anew bat coronavirus that has the capacity to spread to humans, similar to the one that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, has been discovered.
HKU5-CoV-2 was found by a Chinese research team led by virologist Shi Zhengli, known as “Batwoman” for her work on coronaviruses, especially at the Wuhan Institute, which has been at the center of the theory suggesting COVID-19 came from a lab leak—something Shi has denied.”
New Coronavirus Discovered in Chinese Bats Sparks Alarm – Newsweek
@John,
Nobody doubts that the virus *could* spread from bats to humans. The problem (as explained in the link) is that the SARS-CoV-2 that started the COVID-19 pandemic was unlikely to have jumped *directly* from bats to humans. The most parsimonious hypothesis is that the virus was carried by a bat-infected animal–probably a raccoon dog–in the Huanan wet market.
Lab leak and zoonotic don’t conflict really. A natural virus is studied in a lab and there is an accident. The origin is zoonotic and the source is a laboratory. The bat, raccoon dog and human range overlap well south of Wuhan. The virus has aerosol transmission capability. If you hypothesis the raccoon dog as an intermediary, then why Wuhan instead of local trappers in that range? I get the part about not being certain, but in this case my gut says there is certainty of something disturbing that some people are very anxious to contain.
@Eric,
Zoonotic refers to transmission from animal to human. The lab leak hypothesis posits that the virus was transmitted from a lab experiment to humans. There is a key difference, which is why two separate terms are used.
Your gut isn’t interesting to me. As a scientist, I’m interested in scientific evidence. YMMV.
BTW, I deleted your cheap smear of Fauci. Do it again, and I’ll spam the entire post.
It is going to be real interesting to see how the politically pushed blame falls out regarding bird flu being that it is evolving throughout the world.
This nation is not in a healthy enough state to responsibly handle the Ukrainian/Russia fallout with the Isreal/Middle East fallout and a deadly virus pandemic all happening during a foolishly induced economic collapse, but this could be where we are headed.
Joel, you’re a scientist and I am not. But I was advised to go to the grocery as little as possible, stay the heck away from people while I was there, not to get near the plexiglass partitions, wear a mask, got screamed at because my autistic son, who 100% qualified for the Wisconsin mask requirement exemption, wasn’t masked (even though his little sister and I were masked standing right there). ‘You might kill people at the grocery store even if you are feeling fine’ was the story in 2020, but now it’s paranoid to think that the Chinese lab worker couldn’t have infected the market and not the other way around?
@Eric,
False equivalency arguments won’t wash with me. What you were “told” about preventing COVID spread has absolutely zero to do with the lab leak hypothesis. Stop trying to pretend it does. It’s just trolling.
I went to the grocery as little as possible, masked up and moved quickly in stores. I got vaccinated as soon as I could.
I’m sorry you were screamed at. I never was, nor was anyone I know, and screaming was not a government policy. I saw lots of unmasked people and none of them were screamed at in front of me. I still see masked and unmasked people and zero screaming.
Your personal experience in grocery shopping has absolutely zero to do with the lab leak hypothesis. Stop trying to pretend it does. It’s just trolling.
Stop trolling, Eric.
Joel I continue with Couldflare reply issues. If I executed the “Are you human” button prior to selecting Reply, 9 times out of 10 when I hit Post Comment it spits out an error. If I select Reply first, the Cloudflare dialog box disappears, but you can discern a ghost outline of its rectangle. Happening on iPhone and on Android devices. I was going to reply that also pretty darn parsimonious is Lab worker A: “Oops”. Lab worker B: “I need to pick up something for dinner”.
@Eric,
“I was going to reply that also pretty darn parsimonious is Lab worker A: “Oops”. Lab worker B: “I need to pick up something for dinner”.
And you would be wrong. Possible, yes. Paranoid, yes. Parsimonious, no.