Thread by @Ayjchan

WIV Dr Shi ZL's own words: "We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2." sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/t…

https://twitter.com/maggiekb1/status/1346551820496330758

Also, WIV and the Huazhong Agricultural University "collected samples of farmed animals and livestock from farms around Wuhan and in other places in Hubei Province. We did not detect any SARSCoV-2 nucleic acids in these samples."

I'm distressed that experts who are criticizing people like me for spreading misinformation - literally calling me a conspiracist and comparing me to QAnon and people who incite violence - are also unintentionally spreading misinformation about covid origins.

It's not difficult to find info that SARS viruses are not prevalent in Hubei province. It really isn't. You can just read interviews and research papers of the WIV and the EcoHealth - they even use Wuhan as a negative control (no SARS virus exposure) in their study.

Strongest link between SARS viruses and Wuhan is the thousands of animal (bat) and human SARS-suspect samples being ferried from caves + rural communities in Southern China into Wuhan labs.

Yes, wildlife trafficking too. But Hubei is not a SARS spillover zone like GX, GD, YN.

The story that SARS is spilling into lots of people is a new one. Up till Sep 2019, WIV & EcoHealth were still saying that such spillovers in rural areas are rare. Some experts have recently tweeted that 4-5% people in Yunnan province have SARS antibodies

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1347198722841726978

... without including context that the studies targeted people in rural areas very near to caves where SARS bat CoVs had been found; actual % was 2.7% within few kms of the caves, and only 0.6% for rural communities in Southern China. Doesn't mean province has 4-5% SARS exposure.