Is THIS how the Covid pandemic began after all? Study finds strain of virus in PANGOLINS was nearly identical to the strain in humans

As infectious disease experts continue to probe the true origin of the Covid pandemic, new research is making a case for pangolins as the middlemen between the original animal host and humans. The research team found the strain of coronavirus harbored in the rare animal was nearly identical to the one that has pummeled humans, leading them to theorize that the first cases of coronavirus likely jumped from pangolins to immunocompromised people. The coronavirus strain harbored in pangolins — the animals first blamed for transmitting coronavirus from bats to humans — was found to be nearly identical to the genetic makeup of the strain that infects people, suggesting it passed on a mutated version to infect people While China has tried to insist the virus originated elsewhere, academics, politicians and the media have begun to contemplate the possibility it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology - raising suspicions Chinese officials hid evidence of the early spread Scientists studying the origins of Covid-19, an ongoing effort that began in the early days of the pandemic, set out to trace the genetic lineage of the virus. Based on the findings that the animal's strain binded to more receptors, had airborne transmission and had pronounced growth in their nasal cells, the researchers said they were able to 'suggest that individual pangolins, or perhaps some other rare wildlife species, was productively infected and served as a nearly untraceable pass-through species that transmitted virus to humans.’ Pangolins are rare - scientists are not even sure how many are left in the wild. In early 2020, researchers at the South China Agricultural University put forth the theory that pangolins served as an ‘intermediate host’ based on genetic sequencing, but that the virus did not originate in the animal.