A July 2020 well researched study by 2 specialist PhDs has not received much coverage but shows knowledge about Covid-19s closest linked virus has not been properly disclosed - it needs urgent answers
It shows that Prof Shi and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) did not disclose the extensive work and research Prof Shi, WIV and others including medical Drs had done after 6 miners were infected with an unknown coronavirus in 2012.
These miners worked in the bat cave which was later linked to Covid-19 by WIV and Professor Shi in 2020
Prof Shi / WIV repeatedly visited these same bat caves after 3 of these miners died in 2012 with Covid-19 like symptoms from an unknown virus.
Prof Shi / WIV identified an unknown beta corona virus in these bat caves in 2013 and published a study in 2016 about the new coronavirus - identifying it as having SARS like pandemic potential and in 2020 linking the same virus as the closest to Covid-19
We propose that SARS-CoV-2, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, likely derives from a disease outbreak in a mine in Yunnan province, China, in 2012.
www.independentsciencenews.org
Separately in May 2013 a medical study was published on the death and illness of these miners by Dr Xu the hospital Dr who looked after the sick miners and consulted with WIV about the illness
Dr Xu study can be viewed and downloaded in the link above
“The Analysis of 6 Patients with Severe Pneumonia Caused by Unknown viruses“.
Further WIV received and tested the blood and tissue from the miners - Dr Xu's study sets out
“In the later stage we worked with Dr. Zhong Nan Shan
[Chinese SARS leader and from 2020 Chinese Covid-19 response specialist leader]
and did some sampling.
The patient tested positive for serum IgM by the WuHan Institute of Virology. It suggested the existence of virus infection” (p62 in the section “Comprehensive Analysis”.)
We further know that, on June 27th, 2012, the doctors performed an unexplained thymectomy on a miner / patient 4. The thymus is an immune organ that can potentially be removed without greatly harming the patient and it could have contained large quantities of virus.
Prof Shi / WIV went repeatedly to the miners bat cave after 2012 and in 2013 identified a new beta coronavirus BtCoV/4991 (4991) plus published studies on 4991 in 2016 and in 2017 and 2018
After Covid-19 appeared in 2020 WIV published the data for 4991 but it had now been renamed RaTG13 and WIV failed to disclose RaTG13 was actually 4991 (this info was discovered by other researchers) plus WIV did not link or release the previous 2013 medical study findings or the 2016 and later Prof Shi / WIV published studies
Among their 2013/2016 findings from the miners cave were two beta corona viruses, one of which was RaTG13 (then known as BtCoV/4991) and the closest link to Covid-19 was issolated in 2013
In the coronavirus world beta corona viruses are special in that both SARS and MERS, the most deadly of all coronaviruses, are both beta corona viruses.
Thus they are considered to have special pandemic potential, as the concluding sentence of the WIV / Prof Shi study which found RaTG13 implied: “special attention should particularly be paid to these lineages of coronaviruses” (Ge at al., 2016).
In fact, the WIV and Prof Shi and other labs have for years been predicting that bat betacoronaviruses like RaTG13 would go pandemic; so to find RaTG13 where the miners fell ill was a scenario in perfect alignment with their expectations.
Given the interests of the WIV / Prof Shi lab in zoonotic origins of human disease, once such a sample was sent to them, it would have been obvious and straightforward for them to investigate how a virus from bats had managed to infect these miners.
Any viruses recoverable from the miners would likely have been viewed by them as a unique natural experiment in human passaging offering unprecedented and otherwise-impossible-to-obtain insights into how bat coronaviruses can adapt to humans.
The WIV itself didn’t disclose any of these links nor does it seem that any follow up on the miners has taken place.
On the contrary, in a March 2020 interview the famous WIV “bat woman” Prof Shi Zhengli claimed “a fungus” had caused the miners’ illness - however it seems clear from Dr Xu medical study and Prof Shi's research that
1. the miners hospital Dr (Dr Xu) had already indentified that an unknown virus was the likely cause of the illness and deaths and any fungal infection was secondary
2. WIV had tested the miners blood and identified a unknown virus
3. Prof Shi had by 2013 discovered a new potentially pandemic type beta corona virus / 4991 in these same bat caves
4. in 2020 Prof Shi said this 4991 / RaTG13 virus was the closest virus to Covid-19
5. Prof Shi did not in 2020 promptly or initially disclose the work she and others had done from 2012 onwards about 4991 or the name change of the 4991 bat cave virus which hid its origin
6. Prof Shi has objected to questions about the resesrch not disclosed or on requests for clarification about what happened to missing WIV staff and WIV and other data that has been deleted and now not available
7. Dr Xu research on the miners deaths in 2012 has not been properly reviewed or if it has the findings have not been disclosed
Further links and info are below
There are claims that RaTG13 / 4991 was identified in human tissue in 2012/2013 by WIV but that this was later altered to bat samples
There are screen shots claiming to show the changes above
View: https://twitter.com/TheSeeker268/status/1286327367019839490
This information does not seem to me to be currently verifiable so I only set out the links I have found for info purposes, to save time and in case someone else can verify the claims. There are wayback archieve and other links below
Genomic analysis indicates that SARS-CoV-2 is most related to RaTG13, a beta corona virus derived from bats by 96% 1. At present, RaTG13 is only available on the public database in the form of a genome sequence. The genome of RaTG13 (MN996532.1) was sequenced from the RNA of a bat faecal swab...
www.preprints.org
We propose that SARS-CoV-2, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, likely derives from a disease outbreak in a mine in Yunnan province, China, in 2012.
www.independentsciencenews.org
Virologist Jonathan Latham and geneticist Allison Wilson have proposed a new hypothesis for the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Covid-19 pandemic.
swprs.org
Six Chinese miners in Mojiang mine fell sick with similar symptoms that are now associated with COVID-19 and their samples were sent to Wuhan lab
www.ibtimes.sg
This is a compilation of circumstantial evidence to support the theory that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, leaked from a Wuhan laboratory. Several Wuhan laboratories have conducted research into SARS or SARS-related coronaviruses in the years prior to the pandemic. These include...
graph.org