• Question: how did covid start

    Asked by anon-311596 on 10 Feb 2022.
    • Photo: Valerie Vancollie

      Valerie Vancollie answered on 10 Feb 2022:

      We suspect the virus started in bats and came to humans via another animals, possibly pangolins. We can’t determine this 100%, but there’s a lot of evidence backing this theory.

      Exposure between whatever animal it was and humans, likely in Wuhan, China, is what allowed to virus to ‘jump’ from that animal species to humans and from there it spread via human-to-human transmission.

    • Photo: Melanie Krause

      Melanie Krause answered on 13 Feb 2022:

      Hi,
      We don’t know 100% for sure but over 10 years ago there was a very similar virus (SARS-CoV-1) that spread from China to a few other countries.. it just wasn’t as infectious and eventually died down. But then research into its origins found it came from minks that were kept in fur farms in very close contact with each other and humans.
      With Covid-19 (or SARS-CoV-2.. that’s the name of the virus), we also think it came from animals somewhere in the Wuhan region in China. Similar viruses were found in bats so maybe it came from there, but we have not identified the parental virus with 100% certainty yet.. it could also come from minks again, or other mammals like pangolins.

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