Archival footage from 2018 has resurfaced, showing researchers in China researching the SADS-CoV, a strain of coronavirus that killed 20,000 pigs in 2017 according to the Daily Mail.
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The virus being studied in the archived video is not a strain of coronavirus that can spread to humans. In the state-run CCTV footage, SADS-CoV, or Swine Acute Diarrhoea Syndrome coronavirus, was being studied as a disease transmissible by Chinese rufous horseshoe bats.
These bats are native to Eastern and Southern Asia, and the outbreak began in the Guangdong province in 2017.
This video has surfaced just as President Trump announced the desire to seek reparations from China for “damages” done by the coronavirus, despite reports that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not manmade or engineered.
Controversy has reportedly ignited over the video, as some believe it adds credence to the theory that COVID-19 was manufactured in a Wuhan lab. While U.S. officials have reportedly ruled out this theory, it is still investigating whether the coronavirus “accidentally escaped” from a Wuhan testing lab.
Shi Zhengli, a lead researcher at the Wuhan Virology Institute who is nicknamed “The Bat Woman” for her expertise, has said that there is no way the virus originated at her workplace.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also independently established that the novel coronavirus was transmitted from bats to humans via an intermediary animal.
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H/T Daily Mail