China’s now-notorious “bat woman” — the head of the Wuhan lab accused of being a possible source for the pandemic — has warned that deadly new mutations of COVID-19 will continue to emerge.
Virologist Shi Zhengli gave the dire proclamation to state-run media this week as she joined calls for people to get vaccinated, according to the South Morning China Post (SCMP).
“As the number of infected cases has just become too big, this allowed the novel coronavirus more opportunities to mutate and select,” Shi told Health Times under the state-run People’s Daily, SCMP said.
“New variants will continue to emerge,” Shi warned.
The contagion has already repeatedly mutated since first emerging in late 2019 in Wuhan, the city where Shi’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) carried out pioneering research on almost identical viruses.
The current most dominant strain, the Delta one first identified in India, is also the most infectious and most dangerous, health officials have warned.
Researchers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even said in a leaked report that the variant was so different than the initial strain that it was time to “acknowledge that the war has changed,” leading to new advisories on mask-wearing even for the vaccinated.
But it could be soon be followed by a so-called Doomsday variant that is “Delta on steroids,” Michael Osterholm, head of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, recently told Newsweek.
China and Shi have repeatedly denied long-running suspicions that the Wuhan lab either created or accidentally leaked the coronavirus, most recently detailed at length in a damning investigation by Republicans.
President Biden ordered US spy agencies to investigate the theories, with a report expected by the end of this month.
Shi has previously insisted the rumors are “baseless” and just “constantly pouring filth” on innocent scientists.
