Wuhan Institute of Virology scientist Shi Zhengli has published a paper assessing 40 strains of coronavirus and estimating half of them are “highly risky” to humans, with nine known to have crossed from one species to another and six known to have already infected people.
“It is almost certain that there will be future disease emergence and it is highly likely a [coronavirus] disease again,” wrote the scientist, dubbed the ‘bat woman’ or ‘bat lady’ for her work on coronavirus strains in bats.
Bats were identified as one vector for a new coronavirus to jump to humans, along with rodents, pigs, pangolins, camels, and civets.
While it was initially suggested that bat soup or infected pangolin meat at a Wuhan wet market was the original source of the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea it actually leaked from the Wuhan lab, popularized by The National Pulse, is increasingly gaining traction after years of resistance.
Shi is not the first person to warn another pandemic may be around the corner, with the British government also having put the chances of a “catastrophic” disease outbreak over the next five years at one in four – causing some to fear the authorities are priming people to get ready for another round of lockdowns and state-backed vaccination drives.
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