Animals the culprits

"Based on nearly all emerging human viruses of the last 50 years (including SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012), animals are the likely source," said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian medical virologist in the World Health Organization's COVID-19 origin-tracing joint study with China. "By virtue of their ecology, bats play a special role, not just with coronaviruses, but with Ebola, Hendra and others," said the virologist in an op-ed published in The Guardian on June 18.