ORIGIN STORY

New Studies: Pandemic Began in Market, Not With Lab Leak

But the new, extensive research doesn’t have everyone convinced.

Two new studies have concluded that a market in Wuhan, China—and not a lab—was the source of the coronavirus pandemic. The New York Times reports that the research has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal but could shift the debate over how the virus started infecting humans in late 2019. “When you look at all of the evidence together, it’s an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market,” Michael Worobey, a co-author of the studies, told the newspaper. But Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said he is unconvinced. “I think what they’re arguing could be true. But I don’t think the quality of the data is sufficient to say that any of these scenarios are true with confidence.”