Biosecurity

Bat virus? Bioweapon? What the science says about Covid-19 origins

As the Covid-19 pandemic has infected its way through human populations around the globe, it has been followed by a web of speculation about where the
new coronavirus actually came from.

Some possibilities are scientific hypotheses based on genetic data while others borrow from dark conspiracy theories with little or no basis in fact.

Laboratory researchers have established solid genetic links between the new coronavirus, known as Sars-CoV-2, and one found in a horseshoe bat in southeastern China.

Further genetic detective work – and what is known about the evolution of past coronaviruses that have infected people – indicates the pathogen may have passed through another animal species first. There, scientists believe, it mutated or combined with another virus before finding its way into a human body, latching onto cells and spreading.