Coronavirus research
In 2005, a group including researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology published research into the origin of the SARS coronavirus, finding that China’s horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses.[6]
Continuing this work over a period of years, *researchers from the Institute sampled thousands of horseshoe bats in locations across China*, isolating over 300 bat coronavirus sequences.[7]
In 2015, the Institute published successful research on whether a bat coronavirus could be made to infect HeLa. *A team from the Institute engineered a hybrid virus, combining a bat coronavirus with a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and mimic human disease. The hybrid virus was able to infect human cells.*[8][9]
2019–20 coronavirus outbreak
In December 2019, cases of pneumonia associated with an unknown coronavirus were reported to health authorities in Wuhan. *The Institute checked its coronavirus collection and found the new virus was 96 percent identical to a sample its researchers had taken from horseshoe bats in southwest China.*[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#Coronavirus_research
Yes. It’s a great group doing good research.
I’ve been saying I never believe kooky conspiracy theories, but in this case I have thought it may be a contamination from that lab that started it.