In her first public comments, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology admits to having three live strains of bat coronavirus inside the lab. But she says “none is genetically identical to COVID-19, with the closest strain reaching only 80 percent similarity.”
She claims no one at the lab knew the virus existed until December 30th when they received the first sample from an infected Wuhan resident. Three days later scientists identified it as COVID-19 and nine days later they notified the World Health Organization.
Moreover, Chinese authorities in Wuhan have tested more than half the city’s population for COVID-19 in the last nine days. Health officials say over 6.5 million people were tested between May 14th and the 23rd. Of those tested, 198 asymptomatic cases were reported.
Thousands of medical workers were dispersed across the city to help conduct tests. There are currently more than 84,000 cases reported in China.
5 Live is KTLA’s digital-only newscast and streams on KTLA.com and the KTLA 5 News app weekdays at 4 p.m.
Follow Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/KTLA5Live/
This segment aired May 26, 2020.
