Tweet of the month by Michael Worobey about paper of the year : illegal sales of plausible SARS-CoV2 intermediate hosts such as civets in wet markets of Wuhan 2017-19

The Tweet Thread is here.

Tweet of the month:

The game-changer paper (pdf)

Here we document 47,381 individuals from 38 species, including 31 protected species sold between May 2017 and November 2019 in Wuhan’s markets.

 We note that no pangolins (or bats) were traded, supporting reformed opinion that pangolins were not likely the spill-over host at the source of the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While we caution against the misattribution of COVID-19’s origins, the wild animals on sale in Wuhan suffered poor welfare and hygiene conditions and we detail a range of other zoonotic infections they can potentially vector. Nevertheless, in a precautionary response to COVID-19, China’s Ministries temporarily banned all wildlife trade on 26th Jan 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic concludes, and permanently banned eating and trading terrestrial wild (non-livestock) animals for food on 24th Feb 2020. These interventions, intended to protect human health, redress previous trading and enforcement inconsistencies, and will have collateral benefits for global biodiversity conservation and animal welfare.