Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Vestus from Gimlet.

This is the show that pits facts against futility.

We're about six months into this outbreak.

And I've been thinking a lot about how it all started.

For me, the first time I heard anything about this virus was in early January.

A relative who works in Hong Kong had told me about this email she'd gotten,

warning her of this weird cluster of pneumonia cases from mainland China.

There weren't many details and I didn't think much of it.

Something else was on my mind.

For months, Australia has endured the most prolonged and destructive bushfire emergency in memory.

I was in Australia at the time.

The air was so smoky today.

Someone told us that it made Melbourne the most polluted city on Earth.

It was just sort of stifling.

And then this big rain cane, the rain you're hearing now, and the air is so clear again.

I had bought a mask for the smoke, a good one, and brought it back to the States with me

as this weird memento that I thought the team would get a kick out of.

Curiously, some scientists now think of the beginning of this coronavirus pandemic as a

kind of fire, with sparks that made it out of China and then around the world.

We now think that the match was struck in November.

That's probably when this virus first emerged, according to genetic analyses and patient

data.

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