summary - Reanalysis of the same raw metagenomic sequencing reads underlying the China CDC’s Liu et al. 2023 paper, after those reads were uploaded to GISAID in March 2023. First circulated as a rapid public report (Zenodo, 20 March 2023) and a fuller bioRxiv preprint (September 2023) before this peer-reviewed version over a year later. Reports mitochondrial DNA from SARS-CoV-2-susceptible species (raccoon dog, masked palm civet, bamboo rat) co-located with SARS-CoV-2-positive material in the same environmental samples/stalls, concentrated at one specific stall selling live wildlife; also argues the genetic diversity of market-linked SARS-CoV-2 sequences is more consistent with the market being the point of emergence than with it being a superspreading site seeded from elsewhere. Important limit both sides cite: no animal tissue sample tested SARS-CoV-2-positive (see this slice’s Liu 2023 node) — the argument rests on co-located DNA at the same sites/times, not a positive animal test. This specific reanalysis has itself been contested (Bloom, Virus Evolution 2023, argued the correlational method is statistically unreliable; Débarre, Virus Evolution 2023, rebutted that critique) — noted here in prose per the recurring-dataset rule rather than given its own node, since it would be a third pass over the identical raw swabs.
relevance_note - The closest either side has to a “smoking gun” intermediate-host signal, and the paper most directly answering “what physical animals were at the market” — but contested on statistical grounds, and short of a positive animal test.