ABSTRACT
As the coronavirus emerged as a global pandemic during early 2020, "ground zero" of the disease was initially named in the press as the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the city of Wuhan, Hubei, in central China. With a population of over 11 million residents, and as a major transportation hub situated on the Yangtze River, Wuhan was placed under strict lockdown at the end of January by Chinese authorities, with severe restrictions on travel and movement. These efforts at containment proved too late to prevent the eventual spread of the virus around the world. The dramatic global impact of the virus has been all too painfully clear, yet the exact origins and zoonotic transmission pathway of the virus remain uncertain. Scientists suggest that SARS-CoV-2 probably jumped from horseshoe bats to an unknown intermediate animal vector, from which it spread to humans, but exactly how, where, and when this happened is still unknown..