Virologists: Covid First Detected in Chinese Mine in 2012, Killed 3, Escaped From Wuhan Lab Where Samples Were Sent

Eight years ago, six miners in the Mojiang mine in southwestern China's Yunnan province fell ill with a pneumonia-like illness after spending 14 days removing bat faeces.

Tragically, three workers died from the illness.

Physician Li Xu, who treated the miners, describes how the patients had a high fever, a dry cough, sore limbs and, in some cases, headaches — all symptoms now associated with COVID-19, said Virologist Jonathan Latham and molecular biologist Allison Wilson.

Latham and Wilson who both work for the non-profit Bioscience Resource Project in Ithaca, read the thesis written by Chinese medical doctor who treated the miners.

"The evidence it contains has led us to reconsider everything we thought we knew about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Latham and Wilson wrote.

Latham told New York Post that the coronavirus "almost certainly escaped" from the Wuhan lab.

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