Did China discover SARS-CoV-2 in 2013?

Report by : Gan Yung Chyan

                  / KUCINTA SETIA

SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus, covi) spread faster after it mutates, making people's nerves tense before they can fully relax. From the initial discovery of the epidemic in Wuhan to now, more than half a year has passed. But regarding the source of the virus, the CCP has not allowed independent international investigations.

The Chinese Communist Party has been covering up the epidemic and blocking investigations into the origins of novel coronavirus, making people doubt its motives. Because only by finding the source of the coronavirus can it effectively block the spread of covi. Although the CCP does not allow international experts to enter China for independent investigation, the tail of the fox will still be exposed from time to time.

On 5 June 2020, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that as early as 2013, Chinese scientists discovered a virus in an abandoned mine in Yunnan, which is 96.2% similar to SARS-CoV-2.

The report said that Chinese scientists obtained virus samples at the copper mine where bats infested, and then sent them to the Wuhan Institute of Viology (WIV). Earlier, a mysterious disease appeared in Yunnan, and six men who dealt with bat feces contracted severe pneumonia.

A medical supervisor who took care of these patients in the emergency room pointed out that three of them may have died because of bat-borne coronavirus. These people have symptoms of fever, cough and pneumonia. They were tested for SARS by the relevant parties. Four of them showed positive antibodies, and two of them died before being tested.

Tests in the Wuhan laboratory showed that the patient had a previously unknown virus antibody and the virus genome was similar to SARS-CoV. However, The Sunday Times said that it could not find any information about SARS-CoV-2 and the three patients who died of covi.

WIV contradicts itself

According to reports, Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virus Laboratory immediately led a team of scientists to investigate the mine where the outbreak occurred. The genome sequence of 152 coronaviruses was found in the feces of bats, including a "new strain" similar to SARS.

In February this year, at the most severe stage of the epidemic in Wuhan, Shi Zhengli, known as the "Bat Girl", published a research report in the journal Nature. Among them, it is said that the similarity between the virus that is circulating and the coronavirus named RaTG13 obtained in Yunnan in 2013 is as high as 96.2%.

The report provides information on the strains of RaTG13 stored by the WIV, which is highly similar to the genome of covi.

Shi Zhengli did not indicate whether the RaTG13 virus strain was alive. The Sunday Times pointed out that "almost certainly" that RaTG13 is the same virus found in abandoned mines.

But in May this year, Wang Yanyi, Director of WIV, said that the laboratory does not have live samples of RaTG13, so it is unlikely to flow out.

Was Wang Yanyi's remarks making up for Shi Zhengli? If it is a trap, why should it be done a few months later? These may not be finalized until after an international investigation. If there is no international independent investigation, people may say that the coronavirus has flowed out of WIV.

Does the coronavirus flow out of the laboratory? Experts have different opinions

As for the source of covi, some people have analyzed it for a long time, and it may be from Wuhan. But there are also some problems. Scientists say that differences between virus samples may represent decades of evolutionary gap. If RaTG13 is converted to COVID-2019, it may take 20-50 years to be exactly the same.

WIV did not respond to queries from The Sunday Times.

Martin Hibberd, a professor at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of London, believes that the evolution of viral mutations must cross this period of "abnormal difficulty." He said, "I don't think it's easy to manipulate one virus to become another."

However, Richard Ebright, a professor at the Waskerman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University in the United States, believes that it is not impossible to change the rate of development of the virus this year, "When the virus host changes and adapts to a new host, its Evolutionary change will be more."

Abright pointed out, "RaTG13 may be possible, especially if it enters the human body before November 2016, or there may be an adaptation process that enables it to become COVID-19 at a rate that this (accelerated change) possibility is obviously."