Raccoon Dogs Identified as Likely Origin of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Genetic data from a market in Wuhan, China, has been found linking the coronavirus with raccoon dogs for sale there, adding evidence to the case that the pandemic could have been ignited by an infected animal that was being dealt through the illegal wildlife trade. The jumbling together of genetic material from the virus and the animal does not prove that a raccoon dog itself was infected, but the analysis did establish that raccoon dogs deposited genetic signatures in the same place where genetic material from the virus was left, consistent with a scenario in which the virus had spilled into humans from a wild animal.