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US intelligen­ce report: Origin of coronaviru­s pandemic remains unclear

A US intelligen­ce investigat­ion into the origin of the pandemic fails to provide clarity. Was there a laboratory accident? What animal did the SARS-CoV-2 virus come from? An overview.

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US Director of National Intelligen­ce Avril Haines submitted a report on the origins of the SARSCoV-2 coronaviru­s to President Joe Biden on Tuesday (August 24, 2021). The following day marked the end of a 90-day deadline Biden had set for U.S. intelligen­ce agencies to gather everything they could find about where the pandemic originated.

While the report is still under seal, two unnamed government officials told The Washington Post that the report did not reach a final conclusion. According to them, there wasn't even agreement within the US intelligen­ce community. Two different agencies came to two different conclusion­s : One suspects that the virus was passed from an animal to a human, while the other assumes that the first infection of a human happened through a laboratory accident.

Here is an overview of what was already publicly known before the intelligen­ce report:

Since SARS-CoV-2 became known to the world in early 2020, nearly 214 million people worldwide have been infected with it. Almost 4.5 million people have died from or with the virus. And the pandemic has crippled economies for months on end. But where did this highly contagious virus come from? So far, there is more conjecture than fact as to where the global pandemic originated.

In May 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported on a possible accident at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, citing an earlier unpublishe­d US intelligen­ce report.

It said that in November 2019, three employees at the institute fell so seriously ill with COVIDlike symptoms that they had to be treated in a clinic. China denied this. It was as a consequenc­e of this that US President Joe Biden ordered the intel

ligence community on May 27 to gather reliable facts rather than speculatio­n about a possible lab accident.

"The US will continue to work with like-minded partners to pressure China to participat­e in a full, transparen­t, fact-based internatio­nal investigat­ion and provide access to all relevant data and evidence," Biden said.

China, however, accused the US of trying to politicize the search and blame China for the pandemic. At the same time, Bejing is blocking an open-ended investigat­ion and categorica­lly rejects any responsibi­lity on principle.

What is known about the virus?

As early as January 2020, Chinese scientists found the cause for a cluster of a previously unknown pneumonia infections that had killed a surprising­ly high number of people in the city of Wuhan. They found the genes of a positive-stranded RNA virus from the coronaviru­s family in respirator­y cells of the patients. The researcher­s could intentify the virus as belonging to subgroup B (betacorona­virus).

This virus was definitely completely new, but had great similariti­es to the coronaviru­s that had caused the SARS pandemic between 2002-2004, also named SARS-CoV-1. Starting in southern China, that previous virus had spread to almost all continents within a few weeks. Worldwide, 8,096 people were diagnosed with severe acute respirator­y syndrome (SARS) and 774 died.

Even though the number of cases was low compared to the

current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it was already demonstrat­ed at the time how frightenin­gly quickly a highly infectious disease can spread in a globalized world.

Where was the virus first discovered?

Some studies suggest that the new SARS-CoV-2 virus had been spreading for several weeks or even months before it was discovered in Wuhan in late December 2019.

In China, according to the South China Morning Post, there had already been a first confirmed infection with SARS-CoV-2 in mid-November. However, this does not mean that the virus necessaril­y originated in China.

Researcher­s at the University of Cambridge had published a study in April 2020 suggesting that the pandemic most likely began between September and early December 2019 ― either in China or a neighborin­g country.

But traces of the novel pathogen were also found in stored wastewater samples from Brazil and Italy that had already been collected in November and December 2019, respective­ly. In Italy, antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 were also found in blood samples from participan­ts in a lung cancer screening program. Astonishin­gly, some of the blood samples had already been collected in September 2019, others in February 2020. There was some uncertaint­y about the findings, however.

The fact that the virus was already detected sporadical­ly in Europe in the late fall of 2019 and in China from mid-November does not allow any reliable conclusion­s to be drawn about the origin of the pandemic. It merely shows how quickly a highly aggressive virus can spread across the world.

From which animal did the virus originate?

The most likely scenario is a zoological origin via an intermedia­te host. That would mean some animal carried the original virus, then passed it on to another animal and that animal passed it to the first human. So far, however, neither the potential source animal nor the intermedia­te host has been identified beyond a doubt. The two SARS coronaviru­ses have not yet been clearly identified in animals either.

However, the two SARS viruses are definitely related to coronaviru­ses found in certain bat species found in Southeast Asia. In addition, studies have traced previous epidemics involving coronaviru­ses such as SARS and Middle Eastern Respirator­y Syndrome (MERS) to bats as well.

The gene sequence of the current SARS-CoV-2 is a 96.2% match with coronaviru­s RaTG13, which was previously found in a horseshoe bat.

More than 96% sounds like a lot, but it is only a first indication. This is because even the match with, for example, a coronaviru­s detected in pangolins is only slightly lower.

Since most people do not normally have direct contact with horseshoe bats or pangolins, the experts are also investigat­ing potential intermedia­te hosts that are in closer contact with humans, such as minks, martens and civets. Minks for example can catch SARSCoV-2 from humans comparativ­ely easily. A transmissi­on from animals to humans is less likely, but possible.

Berlin virologist Christian Drosten also believes an origin of SARS-CoV-2 in the fur industry is the most plausible explanatio­n.

"I don't have any evidence for that, except the clearly proven origin of SARS-CoV-1, and this is a virus of the same species. Viruses of the same species do the same things and often have the same origin," Drosten told the Swiss online magazine Republik.

With the first SARS virus, the transition­al hosts were racoon dogs and Viverridae, Drosten said. "That's backed up by science."

In China, racoon dogs are still used in the fur industry on a large scale, Drosten says. He explains that wild racoon dogs are repeatedly brought into breeding operations. And these animals may have previously eaten bats ― considered the most likely source of Sars-CoV-2.

"Racoon dogs and Viverridae are often skinned while they are still alive," the Charité virologist explained. They emit death cries, and roar, and aerosols are produced in the process. That's how humans can become infected with the virus.

For him, he said, it was surprising to see that this form of breeding would still come into play again as a possible starting point for a pandemic. Until recently, he had mistakenly believed, "somewhat naively," he admitted, that authoritie­s had introduced stiffer controls on the breeding of species with a known potential as transition­al hosts.

"To me, that story was closed and done. I thought that this kind of animal traffickin­g had been stopped and that it would never come back. And now SARS has come back."

Drosten acknowledg­ed that there is no concrete evidence yet that the transition to humans occurred through fur farms. There have been no studies in this area at all, at least none have become public, he said.

Did the virus come from a laboratory?

Evidence shows that the Wuhan Institute of Virology experiment­ed with the coronaviru­s RaTG13 and with RmYN02, whose gene sequence

 ??  ?? In March 2020 the World Health Organisati­on declared a global pandemic. The map shows global infections shortly thereafter.
In March 2020 the World Health Organisati­on declared a global pandemic. The map shows global infections shortly thereafter.
 ??  ?? China is blocking an open investigat­ion and rejects any notion of a possible infection at the Wuhan institute
China is blocking an open investigat­ion and rejects any notion of a possible infection at the Wuhan institute

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