International hunt for Covid's origin points to China animal trade

Live animals susceptible to coronavirus infection were present at Huanan food market in Wuhan, the city where the first major Covid-19 outbreak was detected.

Scientists tracing the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic believe they’ve identified a possible transmission source: China’s thriving wildlife trade.

The highly anticipated findings from experts convened by the World Health Organization and the Chinese government are expected to show parallels to the spawning in 2002 of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a bat-borne coronavirus spread by civets that killed 800 people. The path trod by SARS-CoV-2--as the new coronavirus is known--before it emerged in central China in December 2019 remains a mystery, though it’s one researchers say can be solved.

In Wuhan, where the first cluster of cases occurred, scientists involved