A new study that remained unpublished for more than a year found that animals known to be carrying coronaviruses were sold at local wet markets in the 2010s. A study from researchers in China, the UK and Canada that went unpublished for more than a year has been posted online looking at four markets in Wuhan. Several early reports, including a team from Beijing and WHO researchers sent to China, seem to imply the outbreak originated from the Wuhan market. However, the Chinese government switched gears in summer 2020, denying that wet markets exist in China and that the virus originated from wild animals being sold there. Many of the animals, especially at the Hunan seafood market, were sold infected with diseases, including coronaviruses that originate in birds and in fowl.

Source: Daily Mail August 17, 2021 22:41 UTC