21st Century Pandemic Timeline

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Here we go, the bat cave from 2002.

After finding a particular cave in Yunnan, southwestern China, in which the strains of coronavirus looked similar to human versions, the researchers spent five years monitoring the bats that lived there, collecting fresh guano and taking anal swabs.

Although no single bat had the exact strain of SARS coronavirus that is found in humans, the analysis showed that the strains mix often. The human strain could have emerged from such mixing, says Kwok-Yung Yuen, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong who co-discovered the SARS virus: “The authors should be congratulated for confirming what has been suspected.”

They do add this question though.

Another outstanding question is how a virus from bats in Yunnan could travel to animals and humans around 1,000 kilometres away in Guangdong, without causing any suspected cases in Yunnan itself. That “has puzzled me a long time”, says Tu.

Source: Scientific American

Either that virus from Yunnan was not the same as Guangdong, or it was. There are like 35 species of horseshoe bats all over China and they all have corona viruses. Hard to say if it was or not but it wasn't long before Canadian scientists sequenced the genetic code the following spring in 2003. It does say they studied it for 5 years, bringing us to 2007, however, I don't have anything about that study in the timeline around that year.