The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic
▻https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715
Fig. 1. Spatial patterns of COVID-19 cases in Wuhan in December 2019 and January-February 2020.
(A) Locations of the 155 cases we extracted from the WHO mission report (7). Inset: map of Wuhan with December 2019 case indicated with gray dots. (No cases are obscured by the inset.) In both the inset and the main panel the location of the Huanan market is indicated with a red square.
Abstract
Understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in 2019 is critical to preventing zoonotic outbreaks before they become the next pandemic. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, was identified as a likely source of cases in early reports but later this conclusion became controversial. We show the earliest known COVID-19 cases from December 2019, including those without reported direct links, were geographically centered on this market. We report that live SARS-CoV-2 susceptible mammals were sold at the market in late 2019 and, within the market, SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples were spatially associated with vendors selling live mammals. While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China, and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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