--- type: Topic title: Natural origin / zoonotic spillover description: "Discussion of natural spillover, wet markets and intermediate hosts." tags: - topic - covid-19 document_count: 441 sources: - { id: baric_ti, resource: /sources/baric-ti.md, title: Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted), author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2026-07-23 } - { id: cbp_release, resource: /sources/cbp-release.md, title: CBP Release Package, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release" } - { id: daszak_cbp, resource: /sources/daszak-cbp.md, title: Daszak CBP Package, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2026-07-17 } - { id: diary_prequel, resource: /sources/diary-prequel.md, title: Diary Prequel Package, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2026-07-27 } - { id: fauci_diary, resource: /sources/fauci-diary.md, title: Tony's Diary Package, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2026-07-24 } - { id: fauci_intel, resource: /sources/fauci-intel.md, title: Fauci Intelligence Community Release, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2026-06-11 } - { id: gates, resource: /sources/gates.md, title: Gates Package, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2026-07-31 } - { id: letter_dni, resource: /sources/letter-dni.md, title: Chairman Paul Letter to DNI Gabbard, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2025-10-30 } - { id: reading_room, resource: /sources/reading-room.md, title: Reading Room Production, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release" } - { id: slack_pm, resource: /sources/slack-pm.md, title: Slack / Private Message Drop, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release" } generated: { by: randpaul-corpus-pipeline/1.0, at: "2026-08-01T12:42:27Z" } status: stable --- Discussion of natural spillover, wet markets and intermediate hosts. Tagged on **441** documents. # Principal voices * [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) - 126 documents * [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md) - 114 documents * [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md) - 87 documents * [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) - 47 documents * [Ralph S. Baric](/people/ralph-s-baric.md) - 11 documents * [Anthony S. Fauci](/people/anthony-s-fauci.md) - 7 documents * [Christina Salazar](/people/christina-salazar.md) - 7 documents * [Clare Thomas](/people/clare-thomas.md) - 4 documents * Kristian G. Andersen M - 1 documents * [Sara Selgrade](/people/sara-selgrade.md) - 1 documents # Statement timeline Attributed statements in chronological order. Each is quoted verbatim and cited to its page. * **2020-03-06** — Kristian G. Andersen M (reports): "Andersen Coronavirus Nature Medicine Press Release Draft 2-24-20 The COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin, scientists say The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, last year and has since caused a large scale…" [^fauci_intel] * **2020-03-06** — Kristian G. Andersen M (asserts): "But the scientists found that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins." [^fauci_intel] * **2020-03-06** — Kristian G. Andersen M (asserts): "There are no documented cases of direct bat-human transmission, however, suggesting that an intermediate host was likely involved between bats and humans." [^fauci_intel] * **2020-03-06** — Kristian G. Andersen M (asserts): "A coronavirus from a pangolin could possibly have been transmitted to a human, either directly or through an intermediary host such as civets or ferrets." [^fauci_intel] * **2020-05-01** — [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) (asserts): "I have not yet heard from you and would ask you to let us know as soon as possible whether or not you will be able to dothis for us.The manuscript abstract appears below.In our paper we describe some unusual characteristics of the regulatory 5' UTR sequences…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-01** — [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) (asserts): "We are also discussing possible therapeuticimplications of this finding - especially RNA interference and direct knock-out of the unique 5' UTR regulatory sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which, due to the high replication (and error) rate of SARS-CoV-2…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-01** — [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md) (asserts): "Which, I don't know, in combination with wet markets and the like might increase the risk of an outbreak from a bat coronaviruses.We need an actual razor in Occam's razor." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-10** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (asserts): "I think they missed a brilliant opportunity to use pangolins instead." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-13** — [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md) (asserts): ""My first look at the virus suggested that the pattern of distribution of sequence variation across the genome looked natural, but that may too broad brush." ProfBill has a new long read on Virological on this topic - synonymous mutations look very normal…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-18** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (acknowledges): "Completely agree about the pangolin RBD." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** — [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) (asserts): "(COMMENTS FROM MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST IN BLUE TYPE) This has two problems in respect of the second half assumption 1. doesnt prove it didn't happen in a petri dish - themixing could have happened naturally in a co-infected pangolin that had two related…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** — [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) (questions): "Both equally possible, latter probably more plausible - how many co-infected pangolins are out there?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** — [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) (asserts): "But third scenario they don't touch onmight be the most plausible of all - rather than postulating random recombination between the two viruses - the third possibility is that a researcher deliberately inserted the pangolin spike mutation into bat virus to…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** — [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) (asserts): "It is the acquisition en masse of these 4 key new residues and nothing in flanking sequences that raises the distinct impression that someone deliberately inserted these 4 residuesin one step - with recombination would expect some variability on either side…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-28** — [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md) (questions): "I'm not sure where he has this from "The novel coronavirus had existed long before", but other than that, seems plausible - I don't really think we have any good reason to believe that all of this started in the seafood market(it could very likely just have…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-29** — [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) (asserts): "```We also demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2's entire RBM was introduced through recombination with coronaviruses from pangolins``` Nope." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-08** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (questions): "Plenty of reasons why traffic could have increased: perhaps they had a special offer at the wet market?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-11** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (asserts): "I think the bats not roosting in winter argument is nothing because I reckon it went through an intermediate host anyway." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-11** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (asserts): "Strictly confidentially, I literally (2 mins ago) just got an email that says: "Recently, we isolated a pangolin-Cov that ishighly related with SARS-CoV-2 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x)." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-11** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (asserts): "We further found that the infected pangolins showed similar CT scans with COVID-19 patients (please see the attachment, a and b are virus-positive pangolins, while c is virus-negative)." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-11** — [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md) (questions): "I find it peculiar that all these pangolins are showing up sick with all sorts of SARS-like CoVs though - I mean, these guys have been traded_forever_ and only now do we realize they have CoVs?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-11** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (asserts): "No one gives a shit and now we are seeing loads of pangolins with frothy lungs." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-12** — [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md) (questions): "The CoVs from the frothy pangolins are pretty diverse - multiple introductions, long time evolving or both?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-12** — [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md) (questions): "IOWS what is the Proximal Origin of Pangolin-SARS?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-12** — [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) (asserts): "I hear there may be more pangolin viruses." [^slack_pm] # Matching terms High-confidence: `natural origin`, `zoonotic spillover`, `natural spillover`, `intermediate host`, `huanan`, `wet market`, `seafood market`, `pangolin`, `spillover event` Supporting: `bat`, `bats`, `civet`, `reservoir`, `zoonosis`, `zoonotic`, `animal host`, `raccoon dog` # Sources [^baric_ti]: [baric_ti](/sources/baric-ti.md) [^cbp_release]: [cbp_release](/sources/cbp-release.md) [^daszak_cbp]: [daszak_cbp](/sources/daszak-cbp.md) [^diary_prequel]: [diary_prequel](/sources/diary-prequel.md) [^fauci_diary]: [fauci_diary](/sources/fauci-diary.md) [^fauci_intel]: [fauci_intel](/sources/fauci-intel.md) [^gates]: [gates](/sources/gates.md) [^letter_dni]: [letter_dni](/sources/letter-dni.md) [^reading_room]: [reading_room](/sources/reading-room.md) [^slack_pm]: [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)