According to a report in The Sunday Times, a corona virus that is 96% similar to COVID-19 reached the Virology Institute in Wuhan seven years ago - the epidemic's outbreak

• A virus similar to COVID-19 was identified in 2013

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Corona virus samples, 96 percent similar to the COVID-19 virus, came to the Wuhan Chinese Institute of Virology seven years ago - the Sunday Times reported. This raises new questions about the outbreak of the global epidemic in the Chinese city.

In 2013, scientists reported to the Wuhan lab that frozen specimens were found in a closed copper mine where many bats had settled, after six men evacuating animal feces had severe pneumonia. Three of them died, probably as a result of the virus transmitted by a bat, according to a medical staff member working in the medical department who treated the patients.

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The mine in Yunnan Province has aroused the curiosity of Shai Zangli, a corona virus expert in bats. Zangley, known as the "bat woman," worked at the Vaughan Institute of Virology. In a study released in February 2020, she noted that there is a 96.2 percent similarity between the COVID-19 virus and the RaTG13 virus discovered seven years ago in the mine.

Four percent of the difference between the viruses is considered significant, and in the Vaughan Virology Institute, they claimed that during the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, there were no active models of the RaTG13 in their laboratory and therefore it was unlikely to leak.