Fresh look at earliest COVID cases points to live-animal market as most likely source

Conspiracy theorists need little more than suspicion, some cherry-picked facts and vibrant imaginations to spin tales about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. But for the scientists working to establish the facts, the path to the truth is much more plodding.

Their search will take them through a trove of medical records whose quotidian details will be important guideposts to the time and circumstances of the coronavirus's birth as a human pathogen. Patients' recall of their whereabouts and contacts will matter too.

But even if the Chinese government were willing to open all its patient files to international investigators — it currently is not — symptom reports and patients' memories can be fallible and confusing. Researchers need to check every fact as they ferret out the story, piece by piece.

University of Arizona evolutionary