Category: Corona Virus

Another Mainer has died as health officials on Wednesday reported 24 new coronavirus cases in the state.

Wednesdays report brings the total coronavirus cases in Maine to 4,389. Of those, 3,942 have been confirmed positive, while 447 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency revised Tuesdays cumulative total to 4,365, down from 4,368, meaning there was an increase of 21 over the previous days report, state data show. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

New cases were reported in Androscoggin (2), Aroostook (1), Cumberland (1), Kennebec (1), Penobscot (1), Piscataquis (1), Somerset (1) and York (12) counties, state data show. Information about where the other cases were detected wasnt immediately available Wednesday.

The latest death involved a woman in her 80s from York County, bringing the statewide death toll to 132. Information about that case wasnt immediately available. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

Maine CDC spokesperson Robert Long said Wednesday that 85 cases have now been linked to the Aug. 7 wedding and reception in Millinocket. That includes six cases from an outbreak at the Maplecrest Rehabilitation and Living Center in Madison and 18 cases from an outbreak at the York County Jail in Alfred.

Of those cases, 32 are considered primary, 33 secondary infections and 20 tertiary infections, Long said.

No new outbreak investigations have been opened since Tuesday, he said.

So far, 412 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, eight people are currently hospitalized, with five in critical care and one on a ventilator.

Meanwhile, 34 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,818. That means there are 439 active and probable cases in the state, which is down from 453 on Tuesday.

A majority of the cases 2,475 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Wednesday, there have been 244,755 negative test results out of 250,331 overall. Just under 2.2 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.

The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 2,167 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 70 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 596, 221 and 768 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.

There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.

Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (38), Franklin (48), Hancock (46), Kennebec (183), Knox (29), Lincoln (35), Oxford (59), Piscataquis (8), Sagadahoc (59), Somerset (47), Waldo (69) and Washington (15) counties. Information about where another case was detected wasnt immediately available Wednesday.

As of Wednesday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 5,781,834 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 178,578 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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Another Mainer dies as 24 new coronavirus cases are reported - Bangor Daily News

In an apparent reference to the Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, where the owners have defied the states guidelines repeatedly by reopening to customers in an increasingly contentious standoff, Murphy acknowledged, There have been a few knuckleheads who have been more interested in their own celebrity, frankly, than in working with us to defeat the virus. But they are, thankfully, overwhelmingly outnumbered by the good guys and gals.

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Trash collection remains behind schedule in Philly; N.J. to allow gyms to reopen; dont argue with anti-masker - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Find developments on the coronavirus pandemic and the plan for recovery in the U.S. and Washington state.

Where cases stand in Washington:

A Washington state health official says the state will not change its coronavirus testing recommendations despite new federal guidance.

Guidance previously on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website recommended tests for "all close contacts" of people who test positive for COVID-19. The CDC has now revised that guidance online and says close contacts who have been exposed to COVID-19 but are not exhibiting symptoms "do not necessarily need a test."

However, Dr. Charissa Fotinas, deputy chief medical officer for the Washington State Health Care Authority, said Wednesday that recommendations for COVID-19 testing in Washington will stay the same.

State officials are standardizing a set of activities for counties in modified Phase 1 of Gov. Jay Inslee's "Safe Start" plan.

As of Aug. 26, Benton, Chelan, Douglas, Franklin and Yakima counties were the only ones under modified Phase 1. Each had different approved activities.

The state worked with local jurisdictions to agree on one set of activities that would be allowed.

Experts have been urging the public to wash their hands, wear face coverings and remain six feet apart from others amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In a new study posted by the BMJ, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Oxford claim that other factors like crowd size, amount of exposure time and how well an area is ventilated need to be considered.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated itscoronavirusquarantine guidance for travelers. It now says that those who have traveled outside of their state or country should self-evaluate their risk based on their travels before determining whether to self-isolate.

"These travelers should take extra precautions to protect others for 14 days after they arrive, including staying home as much as possible, avoiding being around people at a higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19, and considering getting tested for COVID-19," the CDC said in a statement.

Responding to an outcry from medical experts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Tuesday apologized for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma.

Scientists and medical experts have been pushing back against the claims about the treatment since President Donald Trumps announcement on Sunday that the FDA had decided to issue emergency authorization for convalescent plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus and rich in disease-fighting antibodies.

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What you need to know about coronavirus Wednesday, Aug. 26 - KING5.com

BOSTON (CBS) Nineteen out of 20 people who rented a house together in Rhode Island for a wedding event in late July later tested positive for coronavirus, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health said. Seventeen of the attendees were from Massachusetts, according to the state.

The Boston Globe reported that the event was a bachelorette party. DPH said it talked with Rhode Island health officials about the cluster and notified close contacts of those who attended.

Gov. Charlie Baker brought up the event in a news conference Tuesday when talking about why unmanaged social events are the biggest concern for coronavirus spread.

The big challenge for us is to is to bring that kind of discipline to other kinds of events where people clearly havent been distancing havent been wearing masks and a lot of these involve what I would describe as events in which people are familiar with one another and they behave like theyre familiar with one another, Baker said. As difficult as it is for all of us, the hugging, the high fiving, the singing along to the songs, whatever it might be, indoors or outdoors, particularly in close quarter environments is just the wrong thing to be doing when youre trying to work your way through a pandemic.

In Maine, at least 60 people have been sickened from an early August wedding reception in Millinocket. The wedding cluster has also been connected to an outbreak at a jail more than 200 miles away.

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Rhode Island Bachelorette Party Linked To Coronavirus Cluster In Massachusetts - CBS Boston

Many of those answers, great and small, are already visible.

In Long Island City, where 18-year-old Ferdinand Stirling greeted the closing of his high school with approval It was lit, he said the pause allowed him to make music and grow so much as a musician in the past few months, he said. Likewise, in nearby Sunnyside, Gero Eaton, 30, has made some money selling his kaleidoscopic splatter paintings, which he displayed on the streets outside his studio.

I look at it as a way to keep me sane, he said.

In Sunset Park, a group of friends beat back the worries of the day by stringing a volleyball net across 51st Street and grabbing a ball.

Its a way to get out the stress, said Wilson Idrouo, 40.

They have one firm rule: Unless youre talking about one of the cold bottles of beer in the case nearby, there will be no mention of the word corona.

In Greenwich Village, Willa Kiritz, 72, and her husband, Anthony Blanche, 88, bring their lifetimes of experience to the citys current troubles.

Just wear the bloody masks and lets get on with this, Ms. Kiritz said. The empty streets and shuttered businesses alarm her, calling to mind tough times in the 1980s. But she and her husband ventured outside to a restaurant the minute they reopened, she said.

Mr. Blanche deployed the New Yorkers sturdy what-are-you-gonna-do shrug. I dont think Im too worried, he said. I know Im not going to get out of here alive.

Jo Corona, Nate Schweber and Matthew Sedacca contributed reporting.

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As Summer Wanes, New Yorkers Worry About Covid Comeback in the Fall - The New York Times

A woman spits into a tube so that her saliva can be tested for the presence of the novel coronavirus.

By Robert F. ServiceAug. 24, 2020 , 5:00 PM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

First, a technician pushes a pencil-length swab to the very back of your nasal passages. Then you pay $100 or more, and wait days for an answer. But faster, cheaper, more pleasant ways to test for the novel coronavirus are coming online. This month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for two tests that sample saliva instead of nasal fluid, and more innovations are likely after FDA relaxed rules to allow new tests to be adopted more quickly. One candidate was announced last week: an experimental test, potentially faster and cheaper, that analyzes saliva in a new way.

There is real promise here, says Anne Wyllie, a microbiologist at Yale University who helped develop one of the new tests authorized this month. Takanori Teshima, chief of laboratory medicine at Hokkaido University, who also reported successful results testing saliva, agrees. It will have a big impact worldwide.

When SARS-CoV-2, the respiratory virus that causes COVID-19, emerged in December 2019, researchers scrambled to develop tests to detect the virus. Initially, they turned to a long-trusted technique for diagnosing respiratory infections: looking for viral genetic material in mucosal fluid, thought to be the best hunting ground for a respiratory virus, collected from deep in a patients nasal passages. Thats where the 15-centimeter swab comes in. The swab goes into a plastic tube with a chemical mixture that stabilizes the virus during transport to a diagnostics lab. There, technicians extract its genetic material and load it into a machine to carry out the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which amplifies snippets of genetic material unique to the virus.

The procedure accurately identifies infections about 95% of the time. But the test is uncomfortable and, because collecting the swab requires close contact with patients, it puts medical personnel at risk of contracting the virus. Nobody wants to do that job, Teshima says.

Testing saliva for SARS-CoV-2 was no sure thing. Studies with other respiratory diseases showed saliva tests identified only about 90% of people for whom swab tests indicated an infection. But the appeal of an easier and safer test for the new coronavirus led researchers to try. People being tested simply drool into a bar-coded plastic tube, seal it, and drop it in a pouch thats shipped to a lab for PCR analysis. Because the procedure directly tests the fluid responsible for transmitting the virus between people, it may give a better indication of who is most contagious, says Paul Hergenrother, a chemist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), who led his universitys saliva test development.

As early as 12 February, researchers in Hong Kong and China reported inClinical Infectious Diseasesthat they couldidentify SARS-CoV-2 from salivain 11 of 12 patients whose swabs showed virus. Since then, groups in the United States, Singapore, and Japan have confirmed and further simplified the procedures, cutting out costly steps such as adding specialized reagents to stabilize the virus during transport and extract the genetic material.

In May, Wyllie and Yale colleagues teamed up with the National Basketball Association, which provided $500,000 to develop Yales saliva test; the test is now used for frequently testing players. On 4 August, the Yale team posted a preprint on medRxiv that said its saliva testagreed with swab results 94% of the time, at a cost of as little as $1.29 per sample, roughly 1/100 as much as commercial swab-based tests. On 15 August, FDA granted emergency approval for the SalivaDirect test, so that other FDA-approved labs can use the protocol. Last week, the agency extended approval to the UIUC test given its similarity to the Yale test. UIUC is now using its saliva test to test all 60,000 students, faculty, and staff twice a week, so they can isolate infected individuals as quickly as possible. Testing saliva makes sense scientifically, and it makes sense logistically, Hergenrother says.

Anew saliva test for RNA viruses, such as Zika and SARS-CoV-2, was reported last week inScience Advancesby researchers at the University at Albany. It could be even faster and cheaper because it does not need expensive lab equipment such as PCR machines. Rather than amplifying RNA to identify the virus, the approach uses snippets of DNA that bind to short, unique sections of RNA and change them from linear strands to loops. That alters how the RNA behaves in a common lab procedure known as gel electrophoresis, making it easy to detect. This is innovative, Wyllie says.

A relaxation of FDA rules announced last week could lead to still more variants. The new rules allow approved clinical labs to use tests they have developed without any additional approval step. In a tweet, Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard Universitys T.H. Chan School of Public Health, called FDAs decision Huge news!! because it would encourage labs to develop novel tests. It may also help speed development ofrapid tests that look for viral proteinsrather than genetic materialan efficient way to screen large numbers of asymptomatic people.

We dont need one test to be the end all and be all, Wyllie says. We just want options.

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New drool-based tests are replacing the dreaded coronavirus nasal swab - Science Magazine

Universities in at least 19 states have reported outbreaks, some tied to large group gatherings.

Following what the dean of students and head of public safety called "incredibly reckless behavior," 23 Syracuse University students were suspended Thursday after gathering on the campus quad at night. The next day, citing "a rapidly escalating increase" in the percentage of people testing positive for the virus, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced that testing would be implemented for three residence halls.

Meanwhile, at least 26 cases of coronavirus in three states are being linked to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew thousands of people to South Dakota earlier this month.

And an individual who tested positive for the virus after a Maine wedding reception has died according to a statement Saturday from Robert Peterson, CEO of Millinocket Regional Hospital. At least 32 positive cases were linked to the August 7 wedding, CNN has previously reported.

"We are sorry to share that this patient passed away early (Friday) afternoon. Our thoughts and sympathies are with her family as they cope with this difficult loss," Peterson said.

Masks could save 70,000 lives, Murray says

To prevent outbreaks from becoming even more widespread, Dr. Chris Murray said it's time for local governments to enforce more stringent mask rules.

"It will take a concerted effort but the impact is extraordinary, it's really quite extraordinary what it could achieve," Murray, chief of the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Friday night. "It really depends on what our leaders do, (both) as individuals, and what governments do."

IHME projected that if nothing about the nation's approach to prevention changed, death rates would dip in September but rise later in the fall, and the total would reach about 310,000 by December 1.

But if significantly more people -- about 95% of the US population -- wore masks, the projection of total deaths from now to December would drop by almost 70,000, he said.

On the other hand, if governments ease current social distancing restrictions and mask mandates, the daily US death toll could reach 6,000 by December, up from his current prediction of 2,000 daily, Murray said.

More than 176,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the US since the pandemic began, and more than 5.6 million have been infected, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus case rates have been dropping for weeks in parts of the US, but death rates have been relatively elevated.

Convalescent plasma for Covid-19 treatment

Convalescent plasma is created from the blood of people who have recovered from Covid-19, and it has shown some success in two other deadly coronaviruses: MERS and SARS. It has also been used to treat flu and Ebola.

President Donald Trump said during a briefing Sunday the emergency use authorization of convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19 patients will "save countless lives."

"Today's action will dramatically increase access to this treatment," Trump said.

"We dream in drug development of something like a 35% mortality reduction. This is a major advance in the treatment of patients," Azar said.

Emergency use authorization from the FDA does not require the same level of evidence as full FDA approval. At the end of March, the FDA created a pathway for scientists to try convalescent plasma with patients and study its impact.

Physicians have been using the treatment since. So far, more than 60,000 people in the United States have been treated with convalescent plasma.

Some states see positive changes

New York and New Jersey were early hotspots of the coronavirus pandemic but both reported encouraging signs this week.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted Saturday afternoon that the state saw its lowest number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations since March 24.

"It's incredible what we've achieved by pulling together as one New Jersey family, but we're not over the finish line yet. Keep it up," he posted.

And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office reported in a news release Saturday that the infection rate in the state stayed below 1% for 15 straight days, setting a new record low.

For the first time in two months, the number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations in Mississippi dropped below 1,000, according to Gov. Tate Reeves.

Meanwhile, other states are reaching troubling milestones.

California's death toll is nearing 12,000, the California Department of Public Health said Saturday. With 95 deaths reported Saturday, Georgia broke 5,000 coronavirus deaths.

Concerns and questions around the new school year

The start of a new school year with in-person classes has brought trepidation to some Americans as more young people suffer infections.

In Florida, a 6-year-old girl became the youngest person in the state to die from coronavirus complications. Health officials say they still don't know if the child contracted the virus from a known case or if it was travel related.

Many schools across the country have implemented increased measures to protect students and staff against the virus, even though researchers are still learning how the virus spreads among young children.

For older students, universities have responded to rising numbers with more preventative measures.

On Sunday, Georgia Tech reported 33 new cases of Covid-19, including 17 members of a Greek organization. This brings the total number of coronavirus cases at George Tech to 251.

The University of Miami reported four students in its Hecht Residential College had tested positive for Covid-19, officials said on the university's Covid-19 website. Those students, and several others "who have shown symptoms," were immediately removed from their floors and are in isolation, officials said.

At Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, students began moving into campus dorms on a staggered schedule with designated hours to promote social distancing.

"I think it's everywhere. I don't think there's any hiding from it. I think just protecting yourself is the best thing you can do," Kari Thronson, the parent of a college freshman, said.

Many colleges have already reversed plans for in-person classes and returned to remote learning after coronavirus cases were detected on campus, leading to quarantines.

At East Carolina University, interim Chancellor Ron Mitchelson said in a letter Sunday that the university is moving to online classes due to a "rapid acceleration" of cases and "multiple clusters." The move comes two weeks after students returned to campus.

CNN's Melissa Alonso, Jennifer Henderson, Sheena Jones, Elizabeth Joseph and Ganesh Setty contributed to this report.

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Coronavirus hasn't stopped groups from gathering, but it has led to grim consequences - CNN

Usain Bolt, the Olympic great who won eight gold medals over the course of three Olympics, will quarantine while awaiting results from a coronavirus test he took on Saturday, the sprinter said in an Instagram post on Monday.

Just to be safe, Im going to be quarantining by myself, Bolt said, adding that he has had no symptoms of the virus.

Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter who holds world records in the 100- and 200-meter dash, celebrated turning 34 on Friday at a surprise party. Attendees included his girlfriend, his newborn daughter and prominent soccer players Raheem Sterling and Leon Bailey, among others. Videos posted by music news outlet Urban Islandz showed attendees dancing near one another without wearing masks. It was not clear whether any other attendees had tested positive for the virus.

Bolt said he was responding to reports circulating on social media, stemming from a Nationwide News Network report in his home country that he had tested positive.

Bolts test coincided with a spike in Covid-19 cases in Jamaica as the island celebrated its independence the week of Aug. 6. Christopher Tufton, the countrys health minister, said at a news conference on Sunday that 1,529 people had tested positive for the coronavirus and 16 had died.

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Usain Bolt Quarantines as He Awaits Result of Coronavirus Test - The New York Times

The woman, who wasn't named, is linked to a Coronavirus outbreak that the Maine Centers for Disease Control is currently investigating from a large social gathering held on August 7.

"I just want to remind everyone that as our investigation continues, we keep our focus on the care and well-being of those who are ill," Maine CDC Director, Dr. Nirav Shah said on Thursday. "That is, at the end of the day, what an epidemiological investigation is about. It involves helping people who are sick and helping prevent others from becoming sick."

Shah said they are investigating other points of connection with the group including the ceremony that was held at Tri Town Baptist Church.

"It is an official notice from the agency that they have not aided to one or more health-related regulations," Shah said. "When it was delivered the the owners they did agree to comply to all these issues they were cited for going forward."

He added that there isn't a financial penalty associated with the citation, but there could be if there is further evidence of noncompliance.

CNN reached out to Big Moose Inn for comment and did not receive a response.

Seven cases among children

Of the 32 cases, 26 are confirmed and six are probable cases, according to Maine CDC on Thursday. The median age of confirmed cases thus far is 42 years old, with a range of those who have tested positive spanning from 4 years old up to 78 years old. A total of seven cases are among children under the age of 18.

Of the cases that have been detected, 87% have been individuals who are symptomatic.

"At this phase of the outbreak investigation, that is not an atypical finding," Shah said.

Previously the agency announced that six cases were from individuals that didn't attend the event but who had close contact with reception attendees.

"What I think is really important about this situation is that it is another reminder that Covid-19 exists everywhere in Maine and it can spread really quickly when large groups of people gather," Shah said previously about this case.

The agency is conducting contact tracing for guests, staff and people who might have had close contact with individuals with confirmed cases. They encourage anyone who attended the event and has symptoms to contact their health care provider.

CNN's Laura Ly and Dave Alsup contributed to this report.

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A woman linked to the Coronavirus outbreak at a wedding reception in Maine has died - CNN

As the Asian populations declined, African pangolins began flowing east in large quantities. Since early times, many peoples of sub-Saharan Africa have harvested pangolins, trapping the animals with snares, tracking them with dogs, or coming across them in the forest. The hunters traditionally consumed their catch or sold it into local bush-meat markets. Eventually, the meat became popular in cities, too, such as Libreville, in Gabon, and Yaound, in Cameroon, and that led to rising prices around the start of the twenty-first century. The scales mostly moved through the ports and airports of Nigeria and Cameroon to Asia, especially China and Vietnam.

I know were serving as a transit point, Olajumoke Morenikeji told me recently. Shes a zoologist, and a founderof the Pangolin Conservation Guild Nigeria. To judge from the thousands of kilograms of scales seized, she said, you cant have all that just coming from Nigeria.

Luc Evouna Embolo, an officer for TRAFFIC, an international network that monitors the wildlife trade, gave a similar account from Yaound. Increasingly, middlemen incite local people to collect pangolins from the field and sell to them. The middlemen sell to urban businessmen who illegally export the animals. A villager might get paid three thousand C.F.A. francs (roughly five dollars) for a pangolin that will be worth thirty dollars in Douala, Cameroons economic capital, and much more in China. In 2017, police made one seizure amounting to more than five tons of scales, for which two Chinese traffickers were arrested.

In late 2016, CITES had decided to make all international trade of wild-caught pangolins and their parts illegal, but the traffic continued. Its scope could now be gauged only from the fraction seized by customs officials and other national enforcement authorities or detected by non-governmental investigators. By one estimate, almost nine hundred thousand pangolins have been smuggled during the past two decades. Some were alive. Some were dead, peeled of scales and frozen gray. The scales were concealed in sacks or boxes within shipping containers, sometimes labelled as cashews, oyster shells, or scrap plastic. Those who track this commerce, such as Challender and Heinrich, say that pangolins seem to be the most heavily trafficked wild mammals in the world.

There is a vogue in urban China for ye wei, or wild tasteswildlife meat, supposedly imbued with healthful, invigorating properties. Some consumers cherish the notion that eating pangolin is a revered national tradition. But that notion has lately been challenged. Earlier this year, a Chinese journalist named Wufei Yu published an Op-Ed in the Times highlighting old texts that advise against consuming the flesh of certain wild animals, notably snakes, badgers, and pangolins. Yu found that in 652, during the Tang dynasty, an alchemist named Sun Simiao warned about lurking ailments in our stomachs. Dont eat the meat of pangolins, because it may trigger them and harm us. A millennium later, in a compendium of medical and herbal lore now considered foundational to T.C.M., the physician Li Shizhen cautioned that eating pangolin could lead to diarrhea, fever, and convulsions. Pangolin scales could be useful for medicines, Li Shizhen allowed, but beware the meat.

Zhou Jinfeng, a noted conservationist who heads the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, in Beijing, added a caustic dismissal. Its not a matter of tradition, he told me by Skype. Its a matter of money.

And now, along with the traffic of pangolins into China, a new concern has arisen: the traffic of certain viruses. There was an unheeded signal last year. On March 24, 2019, the Guangdong Wildlife Rescue Center, in Guangzhou, took custody of twenty-one live Sunda pangolins that had been seized by customs police. Most of the animals were in bad health, with skin eruptions and in respiratory distress; sixteen died. Necropsies showed a pattern of swollen lungs containing frothy fluid, and in some cases a swollen liver and spleen. A trio of scientists based at a Guangzhou governmental laboratory and at the Guangzhou Zoo, led by Jin-Ping Chen, took tissue samples from eleven of the animals and searched for genomic evidence of viruses. They found signs of Sendai virus, harmless to people but known for causing illness in rodents. They also found fragments of coronaviruses, a family high on the watch list of viruses potentially dangerous to humans. Still, this was not big news when the Chen group published its report, on October 24th. The scientists noted that either Sendai or a coronavirus might have killed these pangolins, that further study could help with pangolin conservation, and that such viruses might be capable of crossing into other mammals.

Three months later, the word coronavirus carried a different ring. An initial small cluster of abnormal pneumonia cases had appeared in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province; soon the number had exploded to thousands, and the city was in lockdown; Chinese sources had revealed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of this disease; the first genome had been sequenced and released, by a Chinese team led by Yong-Zhen Zhang, of Fudan University, and with one Western partner, Edward C.Holmes, who arranged to make the sequence public on a Web site called Virological, run by a colleague at the University of Edinburgh; cases had started turning up elsewhere, including South Korea, Singapore, and the United States; the World Health Organization had declared a global health emergency; and everyone was now watching. Scientists who understand zoonotic diseasesthe diseases caused by pathogens that pass from nonhuman animals into humanshad begun asking, Which animal was the source? Everything comes from somewhere, and novel viruses come to people from wildlife, sometimes through an intermediary animal that may or may not be wild.

Bats were prime suspects, because the SARS virus that surfaced in 2002highly lethal and transmissible, but quickly contained by the middle of 2003had been a coronavirus hosted by bats. The MERS virus, which emerged on the Arabian Peninsula in 2012, even more lethal but less transmissible than SARS-CoV (as that first virus became known), was also a coronavirus traceable to bats, though in that case the bat virus had established itself in camels for some decades before spilling over into humans. Another notion about the new viruss host was snakesa suggestion made in late January, 2020, based on tenuous evidence, and quickly dismissed.

The attention swung back to bats on February 3rd, when a group led by Zheng-Li Shi, of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, presented genomic data showing a close similarity between the new virus and a coronavirus sequence they had found, half a dozen years earlier, among horseshoe bats in a mine shaft in Yunnan Province, a thousand miles southwest of Wuhan. The genome of this bat virus, now called RaTG13, was 96.2 per cent identical to the new human coronavirus. This was strong evidence that the new virus originally came from bats, but a four-per-cent difference between the genomes was far from a perfect match. Four per cent, in fact, implies decades of evolutionary divergence. Where had the new virus spent that timein what population of bats or other animalsand how had it spilled from one of them into its first human host? With those questions pending, another candidate for the intermediary emerged. On February 7th, the president of South China Agricultural University, in Guangzhou, declared at a press conference that a team from her institution, in work not yet published, had found what may be an intermediate host of the virus, bridging the gap between bats and humans: pangolins. According to a report by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, the pangolin virus that the researchers had investigated was a ninety-nine-per-cent match with the coronavirus showing up in people.

The announcement was an overstatement of what the researchers had found, but it caused a flurry of headlines. Even the CITES secretariat, based in Geneva, echoed the claim, tweeting the next day that #Pangolins may have spread #coronavirus to humans, and sugaring that sour tweet with video footage of cute pangolinsone of them a female with a juvenile on her backclimbing tree branches and snooping for ants. The implication was: these adorable animals carry lethal viruses, so best to leave them alone. When the study from South China Ag. went online, the big result was not quite as big as advertised, though it was still dramatic. The coronavirus genome that these researchers had assembled, from pangolin lung-tissue samples, contained some gene regions that were ninety-nine per cent similar to equivalent parts of the SARS-CoV-2 genomebut the over-all match wasnt that close. Maybe two coronaviruses had mergedin a single animal, the researchers wrote,and swapped sections of their genomesa recombination event. Such an event may even have proved fateful, by patching one genomic section of a pangolin coronavirus together with a bat coronavirus. That section, known as the receptor binding domain (R.B.D.), endowed the composite virus with an extraordinary capacity to seize and infect certain human cells, including some in the respiratory tract.

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Did Pangolin Trafficking Cause the Coronavirus Pandemic? - The New Yorker