In an email dated 26 January 2021, Prof. Shi Zhengli, the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, wrote: “During COVID-19 pandemic, our Institute web server has been fiercely attacked (still going on sometime) and our Institute decided to close down some web pages and databases including our bat virus database. “

Since the database was actually taken down on 12 September 2019, this seems like a deliberate attempt at misinformation.