Covid likely jumped to humans from bats

GENEVA: An international expert mission to Wuhan concluded in a report seen on Monday that coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) likely first passed to humans from a bat through an intermediary animal, with investigators all but ruling out a laboratory leak.

The intermediate host hypothesis was deemed “likely to very likely,” while the theory that the virus escaped from a lab was seen as “extremely unlikely,” according to a copy of the long-awaited final report obtained by Agence France-Presse before its official release.