新冠病毒被证实已经有了数十年的历史：在蝙蝠体内

科学家们的最新发现，新冠病毒似乎已经在蝙蝠体内循环了几十年，而没被人们注意到。根据彭西瓦尼亚州立大学传染病动力学中心的Maciej Boni领导的研究人员在周二发表在《自然微生物学》上的一项研究，马蹄蝠是目前SARS-CoV-2病原体最可信的起源。新冠病毒的起源一直是许多争论的中心，在美国政府官员猜测病原体是从中国实验室流出后，世界卫生组织还在本月派专家到中国研究这个问题。追踪病毒的血统在疫情爆发的早期是至关重要的，因为它可以让卫生当局将人与病原体的动物宿主分开，并帮助避免未来的健康危机。研究人员警告说，蝙蝠中的其他病毒系也有可能传播给人类。研究小组通过追踪病毒的重组历史，重建了病毒的进化过程。他们的结论是，虽然蝙蝠——这种有鳞哺乳动物，可能在触动病毒大流行方面发挥了作用，但穿山甲可能并没有充当病毒的宿主。

The new coronavirus appears to have circulated unnoticed in bats for decades, scientists found. Horseshoe bats are the most plausible origin of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, researchers led by Maciej Boni of Pensylvania State University’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics said in a study published Tuesday in Nature Microbiology. The virus’s origins have been at the center of much debate as the pandemic continues to stymie economies and the death toll surpasses 654,000. The World Health Organization sent experts to China to study the issue this month after U.S. government officials stoked speculation that the pathogen escaped from a Chinese lab. Tracing the virus’s lineage is crucial early in an outbreak because it can allow health authorities to separate people from the pathogen’s animal host, and later to help avert future health crises. The researchers warned that other virus lineages in bats could have the potential to spread to humans. The research team reconstructed the virus’s evolution by tracing its recombination history. They concluded that pangolins probably didn’t act as a host for the virus although the scaly mammals may have played a role in touching off the pandemic by simply transmitting it.  source

指尖新闻：高信噪比，一目了然

新冠疫情追踪