How the Nipah virus jumped from humans to animals has shaped the search for covid’s origins

In late 1998, it got it. The virus arrived in central Malaysia by air, inside furry bats that alighted on the boughs of fruit trees swaying over pig farms. The bats, messy eaters, dropped their half-consumed meals. The swine, undiscerning eaters, gobbled up the leftovers. The virus, ready to move, hopped into the pigs and passed through their coughs to the humans who worked with them.