In April 2012, six workers in that mine, which is located about 1,000 km from Wuhan, fell ill from a mystery illness while removing bat feces. Three of the six subsequently died.
Through the translation of a Master’s thesis written in Chinese, Latham and Wilson discovered that the miners’ symptoms very closely resembled those of COVID-19.
The Master’s thesis concluded that “the unknown virus lead to severe pneumonia could be: The SARS-like-CoV from the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat.”
Two of the miners were ill for over four months, which may have provided the virus with a unique opportunity to evolve and adapt to a human host.
“It is a well-established principle that viruses that jump species undergo accelerated evolutionary change in their new host,” said Latham and Wilson.
However, Sars-CoV-2 has “remained functionally unchanged or virtually so” since the pandemic began.
“That is to say, its evolutionary leap to humans was completed before the 2019 pandemic began,” the researchers said.
Latham and Wilson are calling for “an independent and transparent investigation” of the Wuhan lab.
“The scientific establishment has labeled the lab escape theory a ‘rumor,’ an ‘unverified theory,’ and a ‘conspiracy’ when its proper name is a hypothesis,” they said.
“By taking this stance, the scientific establishment has given the unambiguous message that scientists who take the possibility of a lab origin seriously are jeopardizing their careers,” said Latham and Wilson.