YEAH, BUT IF IT'S FROM A LAB...:

ENSHI, China - Hundreds of caves are spread throughout the mountains of Enshi prefecture, an agricultural corner of China's Hubei province. The most majestic, Tenglong, or "flying dragon," is one of China's largest karst cave systems, spanning 37 miles of passages that contain numerous bats.

Nearby are small farms that collectively housed hundreds of thousands of wild mammals such as civets, ferret badgers and raccoon dogs before the pandemic, farm licenses show - animals that scientists say can be intermediate hosts for viruses to cross over from bats to humans.

The World Health Organization has requested access to China's wildlife farming areas such as Enshi, calling it a key step in the search for the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing has denied the requests.

The Washington Post made a rare trip in September to Enshi, six hours' drive west of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected.

A reporter observed human traffic into Enshi caves, including domestic tourism, spelunking and villagers replacing a drinking water pump inside a cave. Defunct wildlife farms sat as close as one mile from the entrances.

Scientists briefed on The Post's reporting said it documents a plausible pathway for how a coronavirus could have spread from bats to other animals, then to Wuhan's markets.

Asked if bats, farmed animals and local residents were tested for the coronavirus in Enshi, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said they could not verify the specific situation at the moment, and said China banned the trade and consumption of wild animals in February 2020. Enshi's forestry bureau did not respond to faxed questions; two officials declined interview requests in person.

Western Hubei is home to at least seven types of horseshoe bats, according to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, a research institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. One type, Rhinolophus affinis, has been found farther southin China carrying a virus 96 percent identical to SARS-CoV-2.

In the rolling land near the caves, Enshi officials for years promoted wildlife farming to alleviate poverty. Enshi accounted for 17 percent of Hubei wildlife farms shut down in the pandemic, official announcements show. Authorities estimated that the 290 shuttered Enshi farms had 450,000 to 780,000 animals.

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