ArticleEngineering (Beijing, China)2020
Natural Host-Environmental Media-Human: A New Potential Pathway of COVID-19 Outbreak.
Article in Engineering (Beijing, China), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Available phosphorus and opportunistic pathogens drive geographic variation in Escherichia coli O157:H7 survival in soils across eastern China.Nature food · 2025Article
- Successful management of human parainfluenza virus-3 outbreak in a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit.Saudi medical journal · 2025Article
- Data-driven systematic analysis of waterborne viruses and health risks during the wastewater reclamation process.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2024Article
- SARS-CoV-2 infection in animals: Patterns, transmission routes, and drivers.Eco-Environment & Health · 2024Review
- Environmental challenges of COVID-19 pandemic: resilience and sustainability - A review.Environmental research · 2023Review
- Aging of colloidal contaminants and pathogens in the soil environment: Implications for nanoplastic and COVID-19 risk mitigation.Soil use and management · 2022Review
- Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 spreading under the influence of environmental factors and strategies to tackle the pandemic: A systematic review.Sustainable cities and society · 2022Review
- Sheet, Surveillance, Strategy, Salvage and Shield in global biodefense system to protect the public health and tackle the incoming pandemics.The Science of the total environment · 2022Review
- Ecological Barrier Deterioration Driven by Human Activities Poses Fatal Threats to Public Health due to Emerging Infectious Diseases.Engineering (Beijing, China) · 2022Review
- Biosafety of human environments can be supported by effective use of renewable biomass.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Inactivation and risk control of pathogenic microorganisms in municipal sludge treatment: A review.Frontiers of environmental science & engineering · 2022Review
- SARS-CoV-2 spillover into hospital outdoor environments.Journal of hazardous materials letters · 2021Article
- By the power of young researchers.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2021Article
- More Is Not Enough: A Deeper Understanding of the COVID-19 Impacts on Healthcare, Energy and Environment Is Crucial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Identifying the first infected case (patient zero) is key in tracing the origin of a virus; however, doing so is extremely challenging. Patient zero for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is likely to be permanently unknown. Here, we propose a new viral transmission route by focusing on the environmental media containing viruses of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or RaTG3-related bat-borne coronavirus (Bat-CoV), which we term the "environmental quasi-host." We reason that the environmental quasi-host is likely to be a key node in helping recognize the origin of SARS-CoV-2; thus, SARS-CoV-2 might be transmitted along the route of natural host-environmental media-human. Reflecting upon viral outbreaks in the history of humanity, we realize that many epidemic events are caused by direct contact between humans and environmental media containing infectious viruses. Indeed, contacts between humans and environmental quasi-hosts are greatly increasing as the space of human activity incrementally overlaps with animals' living spaces, due to the rapid development and population growth of human society. Moreover, viruses can survive for a long time in environmental media. Therefore, we propose a new potential mechanism to trace the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak.
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