Four
million lives lost and all of humanity disrupted, the scientific search for the
origins of the novel coronavirus continues.

The
World Health Organization (WHO) officially started its investigation last year.
Questions over its conclusions escalated into a heavily politicised debate with
accusations of conspiracy and cover-ups based on hardly any strong evidence.

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Now,
21 researchers are trying to understand how a virus that originated in bats
transferred into humans with the aim to ‘set the record straight’ by publishing
their summary of the scientific evidence about the pandemic’s beginnings,
reports the BBC.

These
researchers have come up with a pre-print, meaning it has not been reviewed or
edited by other experts yet. One of the key conclusions of the study is that
the virus’s biological properties closely resemble those found in nature among
bats, according to Prof Robertson, one of the 21 researchers.

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The
novel coronavirus disease outbreak looks very much like the emergence of the
first SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) back in 2003, according to the
professor.

In
that case, the virus was isolated in palm civet — an animal traded widely in
various parts of the world. Over the next few years, scientists found closely
related viruses in bats and in 2017, scientists found an ancestor of SARS in a
population of horseshoe bats.

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“The
only difference (with COVID) is that we’ve not found the intermediate species
this time,” Prof Robertson said adding that the bat virus link and its strong
association to markets selling live animals both exist.

Having
studied coronavirus among bats for decades, the Wuhan Institute of Virology has
been at the centre of scrutiny since the beginning of the outbreak.

The authors
of this new report point out that none of those were, or could have been,
manipulated into what became Sars-Cov-2. Sars-Cov-2 has not been found in any
natural host.

While
the scientific community is not unanimous on this, the WHO earlier had come up with
similar conclusions.

Scientists
agree that crowded, unhygienic live animal markets create ideal conditions for
transmission of new diseases from animals.

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In the 18 months up to the beginning
of the pandemic, a study showed that nearly 50,000 animals of 38 different
species were sold at markets in Wuhan. Researchers say that a natural spill-over
connected to animal trade is the most likely COVID origin scenario by far.