The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

by Jeff Goodell

One hypothesis is that the virus made the leap to humans while someone was exploring a cave and came in contact with infected guano. That person, or perhaps someone they transmitted it to, then traveled to Wuhan, where the virus spread widely enough to be noticed. A more likely hypothesis is that the virus first jumped to an intermediate host, such as a red fox or common raccoon dog, which was then sold at a wildlife market in Wuhan, where the virus made the leap to humans. (The theory that the virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab has been ruled out by most scientists.) “We may never know exactly where or how this virus first made the jump from bats to people,” said Plowright. It took thirty years of detective work to determine that HIV likely emerged in 1908 in Cameroon, during a bloody interaction between a human and a chimpanzee.