Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS

Wuhan market was epicentre of pandemic’s start, studies suggest

Report authors say that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 jumped to people from animals sold at the market on two occasions in late 2019 — but some scientists want more definitive evidence.
  1. Amy Maxmen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Scientists have released three studies that reveal intriguing new clues about how the COVID-19 pandemic started. Two of the reports trace the outbreak back to a massive market that sold live animals, among other goods, in Wuhan, China1,2, and a third suggests that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spilled over from animals — possibly those sold at the market — to humans at least twice in November or December 20193. Posted on 25 and 26 February, all three are preprints, and so have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 603, 15-16 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00584-8

References

  1. Gao, G. et al. Preprint at Research Square https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1370392/v1 (2022).

  2. Worobey, M. et al. Preprint at Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6299600 (2022).

  3. Pekar, J. E. et al. Preprint at Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6291628 (2022).

  4. He, W.-T. et al. Cell https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.02.014 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Xiao, X., Newman, C., Buesching, C. D., Macdonald, D. W. & Zhou, Z.-M. Sci. Rep. 11, 11898 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Bloom, J. D. et al. Science 372, 694 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • FACULTY POSITION IN PATHOLOGY RESEARCH

    Dallas, Texas (US)

    The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center)

  • Postdoc Fellow / Senior Scientist

    The Yakoub and Sulzer labs at Harvard Medical School-Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Columbia University

    Boston, Massachusetts (US)

    Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital

  • Postdoc in Computational Genomics – Machine Learning for Multi-Omics Profiling of Cancer Evolution

    Computational Postdoc - Artificial Intelligence in Oncology and Regulatory Genomics and Cancer Evolution at the DKFZ - limited to 2 years

    Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    German Cancer Research Center in the Helmholtz Association (DKFZ)

  • Computational Postdoc

    The German Cancer Research Center is the largest biomedical research institution in Germany.

    Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    German Cancer Research Center in the Helmholtz Association (DKFZ)

  • PhD / PostDoc Medical bioinformatics (m/f/d)

    The Institute of Medical Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine / University of Freiburg is looking for a PhD/PostDoc Medical bioinformatics (m/w/d)

    Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    University of Freiburg

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links