Thread by @Ayjchan

The people filing patents at the Wuhan Institute of Virology don't seem to be aware that experts outside of China are still trying to pretend no bats were being bred at the WIV.

h/t @C_Small_
patents.google.com/patent/CN11220…

"The invention aims to provide an artificial breeding method of wild bat predators.. wild bat predators are artificially domesticated, bred and passaged to establish an artificial breeding group, thereby providing a brand-new model experimental animal for scientific research."

Is there sufficient detail in the WIV bat breeding patent? @sciencecohen

"Wang also discounts reports that WIV has live bats."
science.org/content/articl…

@sciencecohen Animal models in the lab are utilized, even if they are not the same host you derived a virus from, because it's the best you've got.

Last summer, this German team infected a fruit bat Rousettus aegyptiacus with SARS2 and showed bat-to-bat transmission.
thelancet.com/journals/lanmi…

@sciencecohen The scientists warned "bats are at risk of being infected anthropozoonotically by SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, during the pandemic, all contact with bats (eg, during research programmes or ecological analyses), should be avoided."

Virus hunters could introduce SARS2 to bat reservoirs.

I hope that the significance of this risk is not lost on scientists.

Since we don't even know if the virus is natural in origin, we don't want to be giving it to animals in nature. Although it's arguably too late now. aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/…