At least one animal in the Huanan market supply chain was infected with SARS-CoV-2 before sustained human transmission began at the market.

The zoonotic family's missing keystone: consistent with COV-C006 but unestablished by it on the analysing authors' own statement, and the sampling window closed with clearance and disinfection. No new material moves it.

The zoonotic family's missing keystone: consistent with COV-C006 but unestablished by it on the analysing authors' own statement, and the sampling window has largely closed (COV-E006, COV-E025). Unchanged.

The zoonotic family's missing keystone. Consistent with COV-C006 but unestablished by it on the analysing authors' own statement (COV-E005), and the physical sampling window has largely closed with the custodian declaring the inquiry finished (COV-E025).

Confirming that a supply-chain animal was infected prior to the market outbreak would definitively settle the transmission chain, but no such evidence currently exists. The claim remains entirely open because physical evidence has degraded and the candidate species were not properly tested. The strongest opposing consideration is that the physical opportunity to secure this proof likely expired when the 2019 live stock was eliminated and the upstream farm traceback was never completed.

While the co-location of susceptible wildlife DNA and viral RNA in market stalls is consistent with a zoonotic jump, it cannot confirm actual animal infection. No infected pre-outbreak animal has been identified, and the physical stock was cleared before systematic testing could occur. Proving or disproving this critical keystone requires supply-chain records or archived 2019 samples that have not been provided.

While spatial clustering and metagenomic co-location are highly consistent with an infected supply-chain animal, no affirmative biological proof has ever been produced. The physical opportunity to locate an infected animal in the 2019 stock has functionally expired. The strongest opposing consideration is simply the absolute absence of evidence: without archived positive tissues or complete traceback data, the zoonotic transmission chain remains unclosed.

Co-location evidence (COV-E005, COV-E007) makes an infected supply animal plausibly and even intuitively likely, but COV-E006 and COV-E008 demonstrate that the animals that mattered most were never tested and that all reported testing is negative and partly non-credible. With no direct detection in animals or archived material, and with physical access to the 2019 stock largely lost, there is simply no way on the present record to move beyond plausibility in either direction.

The co‑location of virus RNA and susceptible‑animal DNA at a wildlife stall (COV-C006, COV-E005, COV-E007) and the overall clustering of positives in the live‑mammal zone (COV-C005, COV-E004) make pre‑market infection of at least one supply‑chain animal a natural inference. Yet no animal has been shown to carry SARS‑CoV‑2 or a close progenitor (COV-C007, COV-E006, COV-E008, COV-E009), the relevant stock was never directly tested, and the animals are gone; thus there is no direct positive evidence. The strongest opposing consideration is precisely this lack of any confirmed infected animal despite large-scale reported testing, even if that testing was poorly targeted.

Co‑location of susceptible‑animal DNA with viral RNA near wildlife stalls and the broader ecological context make a pre‑market infected animal plausible, and this is exactly what a standard zoonotic pathway predicts. Yet no infected animal or positive archived supply‑ chain sample has ever been documented, the relevant 2019 stock is largely gone, and the available data cannot distinguish animal from human shedding, so the claim remains genuinely open.

This is the causal claim the co-location evidence is constantly read as having established, and it has not. Crits-Christoph state that their data cannot establish which species was infected; no infected animal has ever been identified; and the 2019 stock was gone before sampling began. Consistency with zoonosis is not confirmation, and the physical opportunity to close the chain has largely expired. The strongest opposing consideration, against treating the claim as merely open rather than weakly disfavored, is that only a zoonotic origin directly predicts virus–wildlife co-detection and that an absence produced by not testing the relevant species is uninformative — but prediction is not a demonstrated infected animal, and nothing affirmative has been produced.

This is the causal keystone the co-location evidence is constantly read as having established, and it has not been established. Crits- Christoph et al. say only a zoonotic origin directly predicts virus-plus-wildlife co-detection and, in the same papers, that the data cannot identify an infected species; Liu et al. found every animal sample negative; SAGO treats the animals as a possible source, not a demonstrated one. No archived 2019 tissue or serum from the market's wildlife stock has been reported positive, and the physical opportunity to test that stock has largely expired. Strongest opposing consideration against leaving it open: the geographic, environmental, and metagenomic pattern is exactly what an infected supply-chain animal would leave behind, so some readers treat C006 as sufficient; that reads a consistent circumstantial pattern as a closed transmission chain, which the authors of the pattern themselves refuse to do.

Co-location of viral RNA and susceptible-wildlife DNA is consistent with a pre-human-transmission infected animal and, by the analysing authors' own statement, cannot establish it; no infected animal has ever been identified, and the animals that would have been tested were gone before sampling began. Resolving the claim either way would largely settle the case, which is why it is stated separately rather than being absorbed into the co-location evidence. The strongest opposing consideration is that nothing affirmative has been produced and the physical opportunity to test the 2019 stock has largely expired, which some readings treat as a practical negative rather than an open question — a reading this file does not adopt, because an absence produced by not testing the relevant species is not a completed traceback.

This is the zoonotic family's missing keystone, and the file correctly refuses to let the co-location evidence silently discharge it. Nothing affirmative has ever been produced: no infected animal, no archived tissue or serum, no completed farm traceback, and the authors of the strongest supporting analysis state their data cannot establish infection in any species. Against that, the physical opportunity to test the actual stock was destroyed by the market's clearance before sampling began, so the null record is substantially a fact about what investigators were permitted to do. Unresolved here is a substantive finding — genuinely open in both directions — not a hedge: the co-location evidence keeps the claim live, and the unclosed transmission chain keeps it unproven.

This is the zoonotic family's missing keystone, stated as its own claim precisely because the co-location evidence is constantly misread as having established it. The indirect case is real: susceptible species are confirmed present at the market before closure, viral RNA and wildlife DNA coincide at a wildlife stall, and the same trade amplified the earlier SARS outbreak (a background prior, not an evidence record). Against that stands a total absence of direct evidence — no infected animal, no archived tissue, no completed traceback — and the authors of the key analysis state their data cannot establish infection. Unresolved here is substantive, not a default: the claim is confirmable in principle via archived 2019 samples and farm records, and the physical window has largely closed, which is itself part of the record.

This is the zoonotic family's missing keystone, and the record justifies "unresolved" as a substantive finding rather than a default: the co-location evidence is consistent with infection but its own authors state it cannot establish it; no infected animal has ever been identified; and the animals that would have settled it were removed before sampling. The strongest opposing consideration is that nothing affirmative has ever been produced and the physical window has largely closed — which might tempt a downgrade to weakly_supported, but the demonstrated failure to test the candidate species means the negative side has not been earned either. High confidence that unresolved is the correct grade.

Nothing affirmative has ever been produced: the co-location evidence is consistent with it, the analysing authors state their data cannot establish it, and the animals that would have settled it were cleared before sampling began. Unresolved here is a substantive finding, not a hedge — this is the zoonotic family's missing keystone, and the case's structure depends on it staying open rather than being absorbed into C006. The strongest opposing consideration favouring closure is that the physical opportunity has largely expired with the 2019 stock, so "unresolved" may prove permanent; but permanence of a gap is not resolution of it.

Nothing affirmative has ever been produced: no infected animal, no archived positive tissue or serum, no completed traceback, and the analysing authors state their co-location data cannot establish infection. Against that, the pattern the claim would explain — west-zone positivity, wildlife DNA co-detection, and the unlinked-case geography — is what infected stock predicts, and the physical opportunity to test the hypothesis was destroyed by clearance and disinfection before sampling began. The strongest opposing consideration to any lean toward the claim is that early unreported human shedding at the same stall reproduces every observation exactly. This is genuinely open, not disfavoured, and it is the single claim whose resolution would most nearly settle the case.

Nothing in the ledger affirmatively establishes infection in any supply-chain animal, and the discriminating datum was never collected: the live stock was gone before sampling began and the candidate species were never tested or bled. The circumstantial case is not nothing — market epicentre, west-zone concentration, wildlife mtDNA in positive samples, possible multiple introductions — but every element is equally producible by an infected human shedding in an animal-dense enclosed space. The strongest opposing consideration to a flat "unresolved" is the authors' point that co-detection is uniquely predicted by zoonosis, which does give the claim a modest positive lean; I judge that lean too dependent on background priors about wildlife-trade spillover to move the verdict. Resolution now depends on archived 2019 tissues or a completed traceback, both largely time-expired.

The zoonotic family's missing keystone. Consistent with the co-location evidence, unestablished by it, and the physical opportunity to establish it has largely expired.

The zoonotic family's missing keystone, and the point where Gemini's dissent has full force. Consistent with COV-C006, unestablished by it by the analysing authors' own statement, and the physical window for establishing it has largely closed. Unchanged.