According to the New York Times, an international team of virus experts has linked the coronavirus to raccoon dogs that were being sold at the Wuhan, China market.
The link was made through genetic data found on swabs taken from raccoon dog cages around the market in January 2020, just as the worldwide pandemic was beginning to ignite.
The evidence backs up theories that the virus had spread to humans from a wild animal. Racoon dogs are related to foxes and are able to transmit the coronavirus. However, the testing fell short of proving that the racoon dogs were the main cause.
But as the Times reports: “The new evidence is sure to provide a jolt to the debate over the pandemic’s origins, even if it does not resolve the question of how it began.”
