Wuhan lab infected 'humanized mice' with bat coronaviruses in 2019

Did experiments with new bat viruses in transgenic mice lead to COVID-19 pandemic?

By Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2021/01/11 10:39

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The revelation that a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had been infecting "humanized mice" with new bat SARS coronaviruses in 2019 raises the question of whether an accident during these experiments led to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday (Jan. 8), a researcher who goes by the pseudonym Billy Bostickson and his colleagues at DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating Covid-19) posted a Twitter thread demanding answers about a state-funded project at the WIV in 2019 that involved infecting transgenic mice with bat coronaviruses. The scientist who headed this project is assistant researcher Hu Ben (胡犇), according to the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4099020