1/ There are a couple of reports about bat coronavirus RaTG13 which shares ~96.2% sequence similarity with #SARSCoV2. A report from The Times suggests that RaTG13 is the same virus as RaBatCov/4991, a bat virus discovered in 2013. archive.is/7TCsc 
2/ A @BBC report: "...had it confirmed, from the researchers running a respected Chinese database, that it (RaTG13) is the same virus as one that WIV previously referred to as RaBatCov/4991 in this paper. There is no explanation for the change of name." bbc.co.uk/news/extra/ews…
3/ Here's the publication the report referred to👇. The paper stated:"In the phylogenetic tree, RaBtCoV/4991 showed more divergence from human #SARSCoV than other bat SL-CoVs and could be considered as a new strain of this virus lineage". link.springer.com/article/10.100…
4/ Interesting. An article tweeted by Dr. George Church @geochurch also discussed bat coronaviruses RaTG13 and RaBtCoV/4991 which are apparently the same virus.
5/ As confirmed in this balanced report by @sciencecohen, RaTG13 is indeed the same virus as RaBtCoV/4991. A good start but the dead miners were not mentioned. It's a bit odd for not referring to previous publication when the authors changed the virus name.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/t…
6/ Still some unanswered questions: What happened to the 6 miners who developed severe pneumonia (3 dead) after working in an abandoned mine in TongGuan, Mojing County, Yunnan Province? Was Ra T (Tong) G (Guan) 13 collected from the same mine/cave in 2013? wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/20…
7/ This incidence was also covered by a @ScienceMagazine report in 2014. Mojiang paramyxovirus (MojV), a new virus found in rats was suspected to be the cause but the authors “have not established a direct relationship between human infection and MojV”. sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/n…
8/ Dr. Shi was asked about RaTG13 in a recent Webniar. She mentioned human cases as the reason for collecting samples in a cave. So RaTG13 was likely collected from the same mine/cave where the miners contracted severe pneumonia. Watch video in this RT👇
9/ A previous report actually confirmed this:"Three years earlier Shi’s team had been called in to investigate the virus profile of a mine shaft in Yunnan’s mountainous Mojiang County...where six miners suffered from pneumonia like diseases and two died."
scientificamerican.com/article/how-ch…
scientificamerican.com/article/how-ch…
10/ It's unclear what caused the miners' pneumonia/death. While the miners' death was only briefly mentioned in the paper/report, their cases were detailed in a Master's Thesis. Not sure if any patients' samples were still available for further studies. documentcloud.org/documents/6981…
12/ A new @NatureMicrobiol paper suggests that "the lineage giving rise to #SARSCoV2 has been circulating unnoticed in bats for decades." Is it possible such virus(es) causing pneumonia/deaths of Mojiang miners who had #COVID19-like syndromes back in 2012?nature.com/articles/s4156…
@NatureMicrobiol 13/ Miners' cases mentioned in @WSJopinion by @JamieMetzl: "The closest known relative to #SARSCoV2 is a virus sampled..from six miners infected while working in a bat-infested cave..in 2012. These miners developed symptoms we now associate with #COVID19." archive.is/l1B5W
14/ Apparently NIH was also aware of miners' cases. In a letter to EcoHealth Alliance, NIH asked questions about RaTG13 and 3 miners who died in 2012👇For more information, read the two reports from @WSJ (archive.is/XUaSd) and @ScienceMagazine (sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/n…).
