Relevant question concerns not COVID-19 origins but how to prevent future pandemic: new thesis

BEIJING, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- The real relevant question is how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can emerge as the pandemic virus and what the society can do to prevent the future emergence of pandemic viruses, a new thesis has argued.

In the thesis entitled "There is no 'origin' to SARS-CoV-2," which is published on PubMed, an index of biomedical literature, the authors argued that there is no determined origin to any animal or plant species, simply an evolutionary and selective process in which chance and environment play a key role.

"There is no determined origin to viruses, simply also an evolutionary and selective process in which chance and environment play a key role," the thesis said.

Noting that pandemic viruses already circulate in humans prior to the emergence of a disease, the thesis said that those viruses are simply not capable of triggering an epidemic yet, adding that "they must evolve in-host, i.e. in-humans, for that."

"The evolutionary process which gave rise to SARS-CoV-2 is still ongoing with regular emergence of novel variants more adapted than the previous ones," the thesis said.