Covid-19: Why Is It So Difficult To Figure Out Which Animal It Came From?

Was it bats? Was it pangolins? Was it both? Was it something else? Finding the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is vital for fighting future epidemics

- Dr Jeremy Rossman

It has been 16 months since we first discovered the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Over this time there have been many studies trying to figure out where the virus came from and how it first infected humans. There’s very good evidence that the virus evolved naturally, that it was spreading in China earlier than December 2019 and that it jumped from an animal host to humans. We still don’t know which animal hosts were involved, however, or exactly when this jump into humans occurred.