The COVID-19 pandemic likely didn't originate at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan but at animal and bird farms in southern China. The virus isn't a human-made biological weapon but the result of a naturally occurring viral mutation, according to a draft report from the World Health Organization and China.
The report is based largely on a visit by an organization team of international experts to Wuhan from mid-January to mid-February. Copies of the report were leaked to the news media.
Critics say the report is deferential toward China. Delays in the report's release have raised questions about whether China had censored some of the report findings critical of it. "We've got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it," said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The report confirms there might have been milder and earlier COVID-19 cases that went undetected and were first diagnosed as pneumonia. "No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn," according to the report.
The Huanan market sells wild animals such as pangolins, bats, bamboo rats, deer and crocodiles. Bats are known to carry coronaviruses and the closest relative of the current virus has been found in bats. The report said very similar viruses are found in pangolins, minks and cats.
The organization's investigators found new evidence that wild animal and bird farms in other provinces supplied the Huanan market.
"There was massive transmission going on at that market for sure," said Dr. Linfa Wang, a member of the organization team and a virologist studying bat viruses. "In the live animal section, they had many positive samples...They even have two samples from which they could isolate live viruses."
