Researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology filed a patent for a device treating lab personnel “accidentally exposed” to dangerous pathogens in November of 2019 – just months before the COVID-19 pandemic.

An unearthed patent application from November 15th, 2019 reveals the lab – which many scientists and government officials have identified as the source of COVID-19 – designing a tourniquet-style device to wrap around the fingers of individuals bleeding from lab accidents. The patent explicitly states the tool is designed for “when medical staff or biosafety laboratory personnel are accidentally exposed, especially wounds.”

“The invention discloses a tool for quickly binding fingers in a biosafety laboratory. The tool includes an elastic shrinkable ring, an outer cylinder and an inner cylinder arranged in the outer cylinder, and a sliding groove is provided on the cylinder wall of the outer cylinder,” the summary begins. “The invention can conveniently band the wounds of the fingers, and has the functions of slowing down blood circulation and hemostasis. Convenient for follow-up disinfection and wound treatment,” the patent application, which is pending review, continues.

Among the Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers listed on the patent are Wu Jia, who is head of laboratory safety for the Wuhan lab’s biosafety level 3 facilities, and Li Liping, the lab’s Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party Committee and Secretary of the Disciplinary Committee. Tang Hao, who has been honored as the Young Person of the Year at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and is one of the lab’s top safety managers, is also listed on the patent.

The unearthed document follows additional patents revealing the Chinese Communist Party-run lab worked with live bats despite claims suggesting otherwise. The Wuhan Institute of Virology also filed a patent in 2018 for a “carnivorism bat rearging cage” which allows bats to be “capable of healthy growth and breeding under artificial condition.” “The utility model relates to a kind of wild animals to tame breeding apparatus technical field, more particularly, to a kind of carnivorism bat Rearging cage,” the patent adds.