‘Pouring Filth on an Innocent Scientist’: China’s ‘Bat Woman’ Fires Back at Allegations Covid Leaked From Her Lab

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The New York Times scored a rare interview with Shi Zhengli, a Chinese virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Nicknamed “bat woman” by some, Zhengli’s study of bat coronaviruses has raised questions over whether the Covid-19 pandemic began in her lab.

In an interview with the Times, Zhengli denied the lab leak allegations. But, as the Times notes, “China’s refusal to allow an independent investigation into her lab, or to share data on its research, make it difficult to validate Dr. Shi’s claims.”

Since the start of the pandemic, China has faced questions as to the origin of the coronavirus. While most scientists believe it is likely to have traveled from animals to humans via a wet market in Wuhan, the lab studying bat coronaviruses a few miles down the road has also been subjected to suspicion. Former CDC Director Robert Redfield said recently that he believes the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan lab.

But China has not allowed for a full and independent investigation of the origins of Covid.

The Times cold-called Zhengli, and she reportedly responded angrily to questioning.

“How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?” she said.

In subsequent texts and emails to the Times, she expanded on a defense of herself and her work.

“I don’t know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist,” she wrote.

Zhengli reportedly denied that her lab contained any of the new coronavirus before the pandemic broke out in Wuhan. She also denied reporting on U.S. intelligence that three researchers in the Wuhan lab fell sick enough to be hospitalized in November 2019.

Read the full Times report here.