The Wuhan wet market was a ‘victim’ of coronavirus rather than the cause, according to the Chinese Centre of Disease Control and Prevention.
Genetic evidence has confirmed that the virus originated in Chinese bats before it jumped to humans via an 'intermediary animal', but the exact location of the transition is unknown.
Chinese authorities previously said the first cases of the virus emerged at a local seafood market in Wuhan.
But a study of the animals being sold there rules this theory out, after all samples of the animals in the market tested negative for COVID-19, meaning they could not have infected shoppers.'It now turns out that the market is one of the victims,' Gao Fu, the director of the Chinese CDC, told Chinese state media in a radio interview yesterday.
Colin Carlson, a zoologist at Georgetown University, said the outbreak of coronavirus being linked to the wet market was likely the site of a 'super-spreader' event, where one person spread the virus to many other people.
The revelation is likely to heighten speculation that the virus leaked from a Chinese research laboratory, including from US president Donald Trump, who said he'd seen evidence to prove it started in a virology lab.