Two new studies, released as preprint, provide added evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic began at a market in Wuhan, China.

Researchers analyzed data from various sources and concluded that the virus came from animals and spread to humans in late 2019 at the Huanan Seafood Market. The researchers further stated that there was no evidence to support the theory that the virus came from a laboratory.

In one study, using spatial analysis, researchers revealed that the earliest cases, diagnosed in December 2019, had a link to the market. They also noted that environmental samples that tested positive for the virus were linked to animal vendors. In the second study, investigators noted that two major lineages of the coronavirus resulted from around two events when the virus jumped from animals to humans. The first transmission is estimated to have occurred in late November or early December 2019, and the other possibly occurred after a few weeks… (WebMD)