在2020年初，当新冠肺炎仍然是一种神秘疾病时，中国疾病控制中心（CDC）从市场采集了样本。这些样本中包含的遗传信息直到最近才被简短地公开，这使一组研究人员能够解码它们，并将浣熊狗作为可能的“中间宿主”，疾病从中蔓延到人身上。根据3月20日在线发布的一项分析，这项分析的关键是，正在出售的野生哺乳动物浣熊狗的DNA生活在肉类市场上，与SARS CoV-2检测呈阳性的拭子在同一个位置被发现。—阅读www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65067264 During the early days of 2020, when Covid was still a mystery disease, the Chinese Centers for Disease Control (CDC) took samples from the market. The genetic information contained in those samples has only recently been made, briefly, public, and that enabled a team of researchers to decode them and point to racoon dogs as a possible “intermediate host” from which the disease spilled over into people.
The crux of this analysis is that DNA from racoon dogs, wild mammals that were being sold live in the market for meat, was found in the same locations as swabs from the market that tested positive for SARS CoV-2, according to an analysis that was published online on 20 March.
— Read on www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65067264
Does this answer the question of how the pandemic started?
This is not definitive proof. That is something we might never have.
The search for that proof has itself become heavily politicised and often toxic. While this lends weight to the theory that the virus emerged in wild animals and spread to humans at the market, another theory has focused on a possible “lab leak” of a virus from Wuhan Institute of Virology.
这是否回答了这场大流行病是如何开始的？
这不是确凿的证据。 这也许是我们永远也得不到的。
寻找证据本身就变得严重政治化，而且常常是有害的。 虽然这有助于证明该病毒在野生动物中出现并在市场上传播给人类的理论,但另一个理论则集中于武汉病毒研究所的病毒”实验室泄漏”的可能性。
这一宝贵数据发布拖延了多年，导致了对中国疾控中心的失望和愤怒。
福尔摩斯教授说:”这些数据已经有三年历史了——花了这么长时间才见天日，这绝对是一个丑闻。”
这些信息实际上早在2022年2月就被发布到GISAID基因数据库中。 但是，它被放在那儿了，没人注意。 据推测,这是为了根据CDC的中国研究人员正在准备的数据,为研究论文提供支持性证据(共享这样的背景资料被认为是科学出版的必要条件)。
但在中国研究人员得知其他人已经看到了这些信息后不久，这些信息又被隐藏起来。
世界卫生组织（世卫组织）总干事Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus在3月17日的新闻发布会上说，”每一项数据”对于使我们更接近这个答案非常重要。 “而且所有与研究新冠肺炎起源相关的数据都需要立即与国际社会共享。”
The years-long delay in releasing this valuable data has led to frustration and anger with the China CDC.
“The data are three years old – it’s an absolute scandal that it’s taken this long for it to see the light of day,” said Prof Holmes.
The information had actually been posted onto the GISAID genetic database back in February 2022. But it was left there unnoticed. It’s assumed that this was done to provide supporting evidence for a research paper based on the data that was being prepared by Chinese researchers from the CDC. (Sharing such background data is considered a requirement for scientific publication.)
But shortly after the Chinese researchers learned that others had seen the information, it became hidden again.
In a press conference on 17 March, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that “every piece of data” was important in moving us closer to that answer. “And every piece of data relating to studying the origins of Covid-19 needs to be shared with the international community immediately.”
