The Mysterious Case of the COVID-19 Lab-Leak Theory

[Zorro]

Did the virus spring from nature or from human error?

Since the coronavirus first appeared, at the end of 2019, four and a half million people have died, countless more have suffered, whole economies have been upended, schools have been shuttered. Why? Did the virus jump from an animal to its first human host, its patient zero? Or, as some suspect, was the catastrophe the result of a laboratory accident in Wuhan, a city of eleven million people in central China?

Kristian Andersen, an infectious-disease expert at Scripps Research, in San Diego, began tracking the virus in January, 2020. He found the degree of contagion not just scary but unusual. Chinese scientists had already established that it belonged to a genus of coronaviruses commonly found in bats in southern China. It shared eighty per cent of its genome with the first sars, and was more distantly related to mers, another bat coronavirus. This new virus, however, was spreading far more quickly, reaching at least twenty-six countries by the end of the month. “It seemed to be locked and loaded for causing the pandemic,” Andersen told me. Most viruses circulating in the wild, though some can be deadly, are not very good at transmission. They are still animal viruses. “This, almost from Day One,” Andersen said, “appeared like a human virus.”

Andersen, who is originally from Denmark, is wiry and clean cut, with a cleft chin and clipped enunciation. He was working at the post office in Aarhus when he decided he might study molecular biology, and went on to become the first person in his family to attend university. His career took off with investigations into the emergence of West Nile virus, Ebola, and Zika. After the pandemic began, he was among the scientists whom Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, consulted regarding the origins of the virus. On January 31, 2020, according to an e-mail obtained by BuzzFeed News, Andersen wrote to Fauci and others that the sars-CoV-2 genome seemed “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”

Andersen noted that “a really small part” of sars-CoV-2’s genome had “unusual features.” Its spike—the crucial bit of surface protein that a coronavirus uses to invade a cell—appeared able to bind tightly to a human-cell receptor known as ace2. This, Andersen told me, “means that it’s more effective at infecting human cells.” The other significant trait, a rare insertion in the genome of twelve nucleotides, called a furin cleavage site, might also increase the virus’s transmissibility, and lower the species barrier, allowing the virus to jump more easily to humans. “One has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” he wrote. There was much more data to analyze, he continued, “so those opinions could still change.”

https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-case-of-the-covid-19-lab-leak-theory

This is a long but very interesting article on the science of virus analysis and provides a detailed description of the background of the nature vs. lab-generated controversy.

[BigmanPigman]

1. I watched the film Outbreak

again a few nights ago. My perspective has changed since I first saw it...Covid changed my perspective. I think it is entirely possible that the virus was designed in a lab and was related to the government.

[Dunsterville]

2. Covid-19 from Space

According to a theory by a published scientist, Covid could have originated in outer space.
[link:https://covid19-data.nist.gov/pid/rest/local/paper/is_the_2019_novel_coronavirus_related_to_a_spike_of_cosmic_rays|

YMMV

[stopdiggin]

3. yes. and you (and then I)

just posted on DU.

(just a reminder that we have 'published scientists' that are QAnon devotees - and climate change deniers. and there has been a 'legion' of opinion published on the subject of Covid-19.)

[eppur_se_muova]

4. More pseudo-science BS from Wickramsinghe ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Wickramasinghe

He says that about **EVERYTHING**. It **ALL** came from outer space! He and Fred Hoyle have pushed this BS for decades and they STILL don't have a shred of unambiguous evidence to back it up. Their commitement to such ideas was founded on their religious beliefs and not on the evidence; they have constantly tried to force an interpretation of the evidence to fit their preconceived beliefs. I suggest CW should not be referred to as a "scientist" unless convincing arguments for that usage are forthcoming. And his suggestion is at best a hypothesis, not a "theory"; it makes no falsifiable predictions whatsoever, and does not uniquely explain any phenomenon that cannot be more simply explained by more mundane causes.

[WHITT]

5. Well

This new virus, however, was spreading far more quickly, reaching at least twenty-six countries by the end of the month. “It seemed to be locked and loaded for causing the pandemic,” Andersen told me. Most viruses circulating in the wild, though some can be deadly, are not very good at transmission. They are still animal viruses. “This, almost from Day One,” Andersen said, “appeared like a human virus.”

That's because he's making the faulty assumption that the virus began in China, that 'Day One' was in China, which of course it was not. He's starting at least step two, possibly even three, and wondering why the virus seemed to be so advanced.

The much earlier version of the virus in Italy and other parts of Europe, prior to one or more major mutations that resulted in it being much more aggressive to humans, would fit what he's looking for, but when you approach something with a bias, you're going to get warped results. Garbage in, garbage out.