Video shows Wuhan scientists being careless about safety and admitting to being bitten by bats while investigating SARS

We’ve heard a lot of discussion about the virology lab in Wuhan and how the scientists there weren’t taking the appropriate safety precautions while researching the SARS virus.

Earlier this year in January, Taiwan wrote about these Wuhan virology scientists being extremely careless with bats back in 2018. They were writing about a video that showed these scientists in a cave where they were getting bitten by bats and even had swelling on their arms to prove it:

TAIWAN NEWS – A video released two years before the start of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic shows Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) scientists being cavalier toward protective equipment and being bitten by bats that carry deadly viruses such as SARS, demonstrating a lax safety culture in the lab.

On Dec. 29, 2017, Chinese state-run TV released a video designed to showcase Shi Zhengli, (石正麗), also known as “Bat Woman,” and her team of scientists at the WIV in their quest to find the origin of SARS. Despite the fact that the scientists work in a biosafety level 4 lab, they show a shocking disregard for safety when handling potentially infectious bats both in the wild and in the lab.

From 4:45 to 4:56, a scientist can be seen holding a bat with his bare hands. Team members from 7:44 to 7:50 can be seen collecting potentially highly infectious bat feces while wearing short sleeves and shorts and with no noticeable personal protective equipment (PPE) other than gloves.

Video shows Wuhan lab scientists admit to being bitten by bats

From 8:31 to 8:34, some team members can be seen wearing complete hazmat suits while many others are interacting with them in ordinary clothing and scrub caps and still others have no head covering at all. The camera then cuts to a container full of live, thrashing bats.

The narrator then states that even though the scientists are wearing gloves, the risk of being injured by a bat bite “still exists.” Virus researcher Cui Jie (崔杰) relates his experiences of being bitten from 8:47 to 8:50.

Video shows Wuhan lab scientists admit to being bitten by bats

He said that the bat’s fangs went right through his glove, which was likely nitrile. He described the feeling as “like being jabbed with a needle.” The video then cuts to a person’s limb showing swelling after a bat bite.

From 10:45 to 10:50, a team member in a camouflage shirt and without any PPE can be seen at the entrance of a cave in Yunnan, where many coronaviruses originate, with bats flying all around him. From 10:51 to 11:12, the video cuts to three lab technicians handling samples as the narrator describes “three live viruses” collected from Yunan. None are wearing masks.

The video then cuts back to a cave in Yunan from 11:19 to 11:23 where most team members inside are not wearing any protection other than gloves. From 11:23 to 11:26, the scientists can be seen in various states of protection, from full hazmat suits to no mask or gloves, as they handle captured bats together.

A Chinese blogger uploaded a post, later deleted by Chinese censors, accusing Shi’s lab of leaking the virus on June 16, 2020. The post, which can still be seen on the Internet Archive, provides an astute analysis of Cui Jie’s account and the video footage provided.

Video shows Wuhan lab scientists admit to being bitten by bats

At the 8:48 mark, Cui mentioned his hand was bitten while he was wearing gloves, likely similar to the ones shown at the 7:52 mark. Because these gloves barely cover part of the wrist, Cui Jie’s bite wound could not have occurred very far up the arm.

Yet, at the 8:49 mark, the swelling from a bat bite appears to be a forearm or calf. Thus, the video shows proof that at least two bat bites occurred as the team researched bats carrying various coronaviruses.

If they were being this careless with bats in their natural habitat, even allowing themselves to be bitten by the bats because they weren’t wearing the appropriate protection, imagine how careless they are in a lab where everything is under their control.

This from Taiwan News shows their attitude regarding bat viruses:

The narrator points out the fact that bats can carry a variety of potent viruses, including rabies. He then states that team members are injected with the rabies vaccine before each field sampling.

However, in an article posted in the China Science Exploration Center, which was later scrubbed by China’s censors, Shi boasted that “this job is not as dangerous as everyone thinks.” Although bats carry many viruses, “the odds of directly infecting humans is very small, she wrote.

This video, which I’m posting below (it’s in Chinese), is just more proof of the claims by our own State Department that Wuhan scientists were derelict in regards to the proper safety precautions when working on these bat viruses.

But even more so, the fact that this happened in 2018, when we now know that scientists were actually bitten by these ‘SARS’ bats, and there wasn’t a confirmed case of COVID until December of 2019 — all of this seems to go a long ways toward disproving the theory that COVID came naturally from bats. I was already a proponent of the lab leak theory beforehand and this bolsters my confidence in that theory even more.


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