One of the most compelling clues as to the origins of a once-in-a-century pandemic was uploaded without announcement – without being noticed for weeks – on a scientific database. And then, just as suddenly, it vanished from public view.
The genetic data, from swabs taken at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, in the weeks after Covid-19 first emerged, was available online for only a few weeks: just long enough for a Parisian scientist to stumble upon it while working from her couch on a Saturday afternoon earlier this month.
Florence Débarre tells Michael Safi how she came to understand the significance of the data – and how it bolsters the theory that the most compelling case for Covid’s first jump from animals to people is that it happened at the market.
As the Guardian’s Ian Sample explains, the market theory of Covid has long been the favoured explanation from scientists. But recently, US government agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Energy have made statements arguing for the theory that Covid may have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. Joe Biden has ordered the declassification of relevant evidence that may support that theory – one initially, and still, endorsed by Donald Trump.
Photograph: Chiaki Tsukumo/AP
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