What sparked the COVID pandemic? Mounting evidence points to raccoon dogs (Smriti Mallapaty, 2/21/25, Nature)
One of the reasons raccoon dogs were suggested as a prime candidate early on is because they were probably involved in passing another, related, virus to people. In 2003, researchers isolated close matches of the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in several civets and a raccoon dog at a live-animal market in Guangdong, China.This finding prompted researchers in Germany to investigate these animals’ susceptibility to SARS-CoV-21.
They found that raccoon dogs can be infected by SARS-CoV-2, and — despite not getting that sick themselves — can pass on the infection to other animals.
Studies by Holmes and his colleagues have also shown that farmed and wild raccoon dogs in China are often infected with many viruses that can jump between species. “Raccoon dogs are very common viral hosts,” says Holmes.
Many of the first cases of COVID-19 involved the Huanan market, suggesting it was the location of the viral spillover. SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the first infected people, in late December 2019 and early January 2020, along with geolocation and epidemiological data, support this2.During the outbreak, the market was shut down by the authorities, but researchers know that raccoon dogs were being sold there, for their fur and as food. In June 2021, a study described the results of monthly surveys of live wild animals sold across four markets in Wuhan between May 2017 and November 2019, including seven stalls at Huanan3. Every month, an average of 38 raccoon dogs were sold at these markets. The most-sold species was the Amur hedgehog (Erinaceus amurensis) at an average 332 individuals a month. Masked palm civet (Paguma larvata), hog badgers (Arctonyx albogularis), Chinese bamboo rats (Rhizomys sinensis), and Malayan porcupines (Hystrix brachyura) were also regularly sold.
December 2019 sales records from the Huanan market also list trading of live animals or products from bamboo rats, porcupines and hedgehogs, among others.
Further evidence to support the raccoon-dog theory came in 2023. Chinese researchers published genomic data of swabs taken at the Huanan market in January 2020, after it was shut down, including of stalls, rubbish bins and sewage4. Studies found mitochondrial DNA of raccoon dogs in several swabs, including those that also tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Raccoon dogs and hoary bamboo rats (Rhizomys pruinosus) were the most common mammalian wildlife species detected in the mitochondrial DNA; material from civets and hog badgers was also found but not in many samples5. The findings don’t prove that the animals were infected with SARS-CoV-2, but had they been infected, this is the type of evidence you would expect to find, says Andersen.
…and Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK.