The raccoon dog did it: That was the explosive takeaway of a genomic analysis conducted in March by a trio of scientists who had scrutinized data from a market in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic was thought to have begun.
Until then, evidence for that conviction had been scant.
“This is a really strong indication that animals at the market were infected,” virologist Angela Rasmussen told the Atlantic, which was first to report on the raccoon dog study. “There’s really no other explanation that makes any sense.”
Others similarly felt it was a landmark moment. For months, momentum had been behind a countervailing hypothesis that a laboratory accident, not an animal, had caused the pandemic. The new raccoon dog analysis appeared to rule out that possibility.
“The COVID lab leak theory is dead,” declared Edward Holmes, one of the researchers involved in the raccoon dog study.
Only his assessment appeared to be premature.