Once patient zero is found, it will be easier to find the true source of the new coronavirus.

There are two ways to find out the true source of the virus. One way is to start with Wuhan, especially the South China Seafood Market. The second way is to use the laws of virus genetic mutation and evolution to trace the source by analyzing a large number of currently existing virus samples.

First of all, because animal samples were not retained when the South China Seafood Market was closed, the first-hand evidence was lost, leaving us with no way to truly analyze whether there was really some kind of wild animal carrying the new coronavirus inside the seafood market. Virus. Later, the disease control department announced that it had detected the genetic sequence of the virus from the seafood market environment, but this evidence was far less useful than finding one or a batch of animal specimens that actually carried the virus. The next best thing is to analyze the large number of virus samples that currently exist, analyze the genome sequences of more than 90 new coronaviruses extracted from patients around the world, group them according to their differences, use genomic differences to study the evolutionary history of the virus, and detect a large number of The genetic sequence of the virus uses quantity to brute force its quality to get more reliable conclusions. Some virus types found in U.S. patients are not found in the Wuhan area. However, since the viruses in only a few thousand of the patients in Wuhan have been sequenced, and they are concentrated in a small group of patients in the early stages of the disease, we have no way of knowing whether these viruses really do not exist in Wuhan or whether the sampling is too large. The sparseness is missed.

Based on the nearly 80,000 COVID-19 patients around the world, only more than 130 genome sequences have been analyzed and uploaded. This is obviously far from enough. The representative problem is that the Wuhan area where the patients are most concentrated only has virus sequences. Dozens, disproportionately low. So Zhong Nanshan can only say that the origin of the epidemic is not necessarily in China. The real source of the epidemic has yet to be discovered and demonstrated by scientists. The most important thing right now is to prevent and control the epidemic and develop a vaccine as soon as possible.