These data do not provide a definitive answer to the question of how the pandemic began, but every piece of data is important in moving us closer to that answer,
Tedros said
The market environmental sampling data published by China CDC is by far the strongest evidence to support animal origins,
Mr Yip said
There’s a good chance that the animals that deposited that DNA also deposited the virus,
said Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who was involved in analyzing the data
The big issue right now is that this data exists and that it is not readily available to the international community,
said Van Kerkhove
Understanding how the pandemic began remains a moral and scientific imperative,
Dr Tedros told reporters on Friday
In the global science community, there are many clues pointing to multiple origins of the virus,
foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Friday
The data does point even further to a market origin,
Prof Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, told Science magazine
Every piece of data relating to studying the origins of COVID-19 needs to be shared with the international community immediately. These data could have – and should have – been shared three years ago,
World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Friday
What we are seeing is the genomic ghost of that animal in the stalls,
said Dr Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research
There's molecular evidence that animals were sold at Huanan market and that is new information,
Van Kerkhove said
This is a really strong indication that animals at the market were infected. There's really no other explanation that makes any sense,
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist who was part of the research told The Atlantic
We continue to call on China to be transparent in sharing data, and to conduct the necessary investigations and share the results,
the WHO chief said
We need to make clear that the virus has not been identified in an animal in the market or in animal samples from the market, nor have we actually found the animals that infected humans. What this does is provides clues. It provides clues to help us understand what may have happened,
the WHO's Maria Van Kerkhove told reporters Friday of the findings
We have been told by GISAID that the data from China CDC is being updated and expanded. But again, we have called on China CDC directly to make that data accessible in full. And so that remains absolutely fundamental,
Van Kerkhove said
It’s the first time we’ve been able to identify a genetic fingerprint of the virus and a potential intermediate host in the exact same place,
he said
I think we’re coming to that point where we can look at Covid-19 in the same way we look at seasonal influenza: a threat to health, a virus that will continue to kill, but a virus that is not disrupting our society,
Michael Ryan, the WHO emergencies director, said, adding: “I believe that that will come … this year.”
As soon as we became aware of this data, we contacted the Chinese CDC and urged them to share it with WHO and the international scientific community so it can be analyzed,
Tedros said
It’s not the ‘eureka’ moment, but it’s a pretty big advance,
said Dwyer, who was part of a joint mission to study COVID’s origins in early 2021
We need to look at the full picture,
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s top epidemiologist on Covid-19, said at a press briefing Friday
What this does provide is clues to help us understand what may have happened,
she said
Scientifically, it doesn’t prove that raccoon dogs were the source, but it sure smells like infected raccoon dogs were at the market,
said Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Centre Shreveport
We have a duty to ourselves to end this pandemic as soon as possible. We have a duty to those we have lost to find out how it started. And we have a duty to those who will follow us to make the world safer,
he said
We know it’s a promiscuous virus that infects a bunch of species,
said David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, who also signed the May 2021 letter in Science
It's exactly what you'd expect if the virus was emerging from intermediate or multiple intermediate hosts in the market,
Dr Cobey said, adding, "I think ecologically, this is close to a closed case."
It’s just very unlikely to be seeing this much animal DNA, especially raccoon dog DNA, mixed in with viral samples, if it’s simply mostly human contamination,
Cobey said
Based on my initial analysis of the data, I came to believe, and I still believe today, that it indicates that COVID 19 more likely was the result of an accidental lab leak than a result of a natural spillover event,
former Trump administration CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told a hearing organized by House Republicans earlier this month
We were able to figure out relatively quickly that at least in one of these samples, there was a lot of raccoon dog nucleic acid, along with virus nucleic acid,
said Dr. Stephen Goldstein, a University of Utah virologist who worked on the new analysis
I would say it strengthens the zoonotic idea,
he said, “that is, the idea that it came from an animal at the market.”
It still doesn’t tell you how did it get into a raccoon dog, or how did it get into a human, but it’s important circumstantial evidence,
said Dwyer, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Sydney
This will give scientists a fair degree of confidence in what happened,
Goldstein said, “but none of us are under the illusion that this will settle the broader debate.”
There really is no definitive proof,
he said
We were surprised to see it taken down,
he said