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Can COVID spread from frozen wildlife? Scientists probe pandemic origins

Studies from China suggest that the coronavirus can be transmitted on frozen surfaces — but scientists say that’s unlikely to be how the pandemic started.
  1. Dyani Lewis
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Momentum is growing for the suggestion that the coronavirus can spread from infected frozen wildlife. A World Health Organization (WHO) fact-finding mission in China did not rule out the idea that this mode of transmission contributed to early outbreaks of COVID-19 — although investigators say it’s unlikely to have started the pandemic.

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Nature 591, 18-19 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00495-0

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 15 March 2021: An earlier version of this story included a comment from Erwin Duizer stating that frozen bushmeat had been linked to outbreaks of viruses such as Ebola. This comment has been removed because Duizer has now explained that he knows of no reported outbreaks where this was the case.

References

  1. Fisher, D., Reilly, A., Kang, A. E. Z., Cook, A. R. & Anderson, D. E. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.17.255166 (2020).

  2. Pang, X. et al. Natl Sci. Rev. 7, 1861–1864 (2020).

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  3. Liu, P. et al. Biosaf. Health 2, 199–201 (2020).

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