Corona Daily 123: More on China’s Bat Woman

On the evening of 30 December 2019, when Shi Zhengli returned from Shanghai, she immediately began work on the unexplained pneumonia samples received from Wuhan Jinyitan hospital. For the next 72 hours, Shi’s team worked without a break. They survived on instant noodles because the institute canteen was shut. By 2 January 2020, the whole genome sequence of the new coronavirus was determined.

By 5 January, the virus strain was isolated. By 7 Jan, Shi’s team had confirmed the new virus had indeed caused the new disease – based on analyses using PCR and antibody tests, full genome sequencing, and the virus’s ability to infect human lung cells in a petri dish. The genomic sequence was 96% identical to that of a coronavirus Shi had identified in horseshoe bats in Yunnan. The virus sequence was submitted to WHO on 11 January. Many non-Chinese experts acknowledge that this work was thorough and extraordinarily fast.

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Since the time she left Shanghai, Shi was bothered about one issue. Was it possible this virus was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? While her team was analyzing the samples, Shi was frantically but meticulously engaged in another exercise. She went through her lab’s records from the past few years to check for any mishandling of experimental materials, especially during disposal. She was relieved when the results of the new virus came back. None of the sequences matched those of the viruses her team had sampled from the bat caves. This was indeed a novel coronavirus. That night she could sleep for the first time.

When Wuhan lifted its lockdown on 8 April, Shi was in low spirits. Social media in China and mainstream media abroad continued to talk about the possibility of an accidental leak from her lab. On 24 April, the White House recommended stopping funding to the EcoHealth Alliance in New York, a grant that included bat virus research at WIV. “We don’t understand it and feel it is absolutely absurd.” Said Shi.

The biosecurity level 4 laboratory in which she worked was the highest security facility in which work is done on the most dangerous pathogens. The lab never had an incident of accidental leaking. Not a single staff member of the institute or the labs was infected by the new virus. And Shi knew none of the sequences matched the sequence of the novel coronavirus.

Professor Dashak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who has worked with Shi was for a long time describes her as social, open, honest, frank. A sort of goodwill ambassador for China at meetings, Shi speaks in English and French. (She is also a renowned singer of Mandarin folk songs).

To a repeated question about a formal investigation, Shi said, “I would personally welcome any form of visit based on an open, transparent, trusting, reliable and reasonable dialogue. But the specific plan is not decided by me.”

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Other than being termed the “Bat Woman” by the Chinese media, the 55 year old Shi was also included in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2020. Till today, Shi has published eight articles, the highest in the world, on covid-19 research.

When the pandemic started, she called it the “revenge of nature of human beings”. She still defends that view. Through constant expansion, urbanization and intensive farming the human race has caused damage to the whole ecosystem. The damaged ecosystem makes it possible for a virus from the wild to get transmitted to humans. It is not the virus attacking us, it is our behavior that causes the constant outbreak of emerging infectious diseases, Shi says. 

“The coronavirus is just the tip of the iceberg. If we want to prevent human beings from suffering the next outbreak, we must go ahead and learn about these unknown viruses carried by wild animals. Bat-borne coronaviruses will cause more outbreaks.” Shi said in a TV interview with the tone of a scientist’s certainty.

“We must find them before they find us.” She added.

Ravi