Taiwan hasn’t recorded a case of community spread COVID in over a month but last week a researcher working at a Biosafety Level 3 laboratory tested positive for the delta variant:

The worker, a fully vaccinated woman in her 20s, tested positive for COVID-19 last week after coming into contact with the virus at the country’s top research institute in mid-November…

Authorities have confirmed that the woman had been bitten twice by mice that had been infected with the virus. It is unclear whether the mouse bites are responsible for the woman testing positive for COVID-19.

Newsweek and other outlets are reporting that there’s still some doubt about whether the infection came from a mouse bite but Taiwan News reported over the weekend that the entire genome of the infection matched that of the infected mice used in the research:

Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) head Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), confirmed the entire genomic sequence of the Delta variant contracted by an assistant researcher, case No. 16,816, matched that of the samples she had been experimenting on at Academia Sinica’s Genomics Research Center (GRC). This is a P3 (Biosafety Level-3) facility located in Taipei’s Nangang District.

In addition, the genomic sequence of the version of Delta contracted by the researcher differs from any other domestic cases reported in local outbreaks from June to September. This led the CECC to conclude it was not a community infection…

When asked if an inspection had found traces of the virus inside the lab itself, the CECC head said that some tables, doorknobs, and other surfaces had tested positive for COVID, while all tests on facilities outside the lab were negative. He said it was possible the scientist had contracted the virus from the lab environment rather than the mouse bite.

This particular researcher was apparently bitten twice, once in October and once more in mid-November. The second bite was believed to be from a mouse carrying the original alpha variant of COVID and not the one she eventually contracted. So it’s still possible the mouse bite wasn’t the direct cause but it appears clear the researcher did get the virus from inside the lab.

An expert on Chinese health policy from the Council on Foreign Relations suggested that this infection from infected lab animals added some credibility to the lab leak theory.

“If the lab worker is confirmed to have been infected at her workplace, then this will add credibility to the lab leak theory,” Yanzhong Huang (黃嚴忠), a Chinese public health expert at CFR told the Times.

“This case comes as we have reached an impasse on the origins probe for COVID-19, with no progress on establishing whether the outbreak was the result of a natural spillover from animals or a lab leak,” he added.

This isn’t the first time someone has suggested this possibility. The fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was collecting coronavirus samples from live bats means researchers would risk being bitten or being infected later by accident in the lab. That could be what happened with the three researchers who wound up in the hospital with COVID-like symptoms in late 2019. Those researchers were reportedly working in the lab that focused on bat coronaviruses and they reportedly lost their sense of smell.