An international team had previously collected samples at the wet market right after it was closed when it was suspected to be the source of the pandemic. This data and hospital data was used by an american team to trace the origins of the first two viral strains back to the huanan wet market. The american researchers that did the genetics and epidemiology suggested that it came from raccoon dogs because they had been to that wet market years earlier and found illegal raccoon dogs in the western portion of the wet market where positive viral samples were found. That was published last summer.
The Chinese have been sketchy about their illegal animal trading and slaughtering so their CDC claimed in a study back in Feb that it may have come from humans or legal animals and then the wet market became a superspreader. The American scientists dispute that. After their study, the Chinese scientists started publishing their raw data. A french scientist stumbled on a interesting DNA sequence that popped up in that database. She found that the DNA came from illegal raccoon dogs that the chinese denied having there. She got the American team involved. A sample that happened be from a cage in the same area of the wet market as where the Americans found racoon dogs back in 2014 had both raccoon dog and the viral DNA. As a reminder, the American’s previous paper on this showed that positive viral samples were found on both cages and slaughtering tools. Now, we have DNA from a species that has been suspected as a intermediate species in the viral chain to be in the same samples. That’s as close as you’ll get without actually having a sample taken from the animals themselves. Here’s the kicker. That racoon dog raw data has since mysteriously disappeared. Da, da, DAAAHHH.