Bump.
https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038
This is quite a long argument that COVID originated in a lab. I have to say that I found it quite convincing. I should warn that the author is a race-science bro, but I don’t think that’s relevant except insofar as it demonstrates a willingness to make unpopular arguments.
Please read the whole thing if you want to comment on it, but the argument is very briefly this:
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With the previous novel coronaviruses, the intermediate host species was identified and several variations of the virus were identified as it gradually became more infective in humans. SARS-CoV-2 emerges fully formed, there are no known previous iterations.
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In comparison to its closest known relative, SARS-CoV-2 has what’s called a furin cleavage site. Essentially this is an RNA sequence (P-R-R-A) inserted into the spike protein at precisely the right location to facilitate entry to human cells. Having this arise by random mutation is so low-probability as to be impossible.
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The other option for how it could naturally acquire the furin cleavage site is via recombination, except that no wild-type SARS related coronaviruses possess one, so where SARS2 would get one from is unclear.
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The coding for the furin cleavage site is very strange. Amino acids are encoded for by groups of three RNA base pairs. These groups are called codons. As there are more codons than amino acids, most amino acids can be coded for by several different codons. For arginine any of CGU, CGC, CGA, CGG, AGA or AGG are possible. However, different organisms prefer different codons, and only 5% of SARS2’s arginine codons are CGG. That codon is however commonly used in labs. For the furin cleavage site inserted into the spike protein of SARS2, both arginines are coded CGG.
“When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus,” said David Baltimore, an eminent virologist and former president of CalTech. “These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2,” he said.
- The Wuhan Institute was known to be working with novel bat coronaviruses and doing so called gain-of-function experiments:
“Since 1992 the virology community has known that the one sure way to make a virus deadlier is to give it a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction in the laboratory,” writes Dr. Steven Quay, a biotech entrepreneur interested in the origins of SARS2. “At least eleven gain-of-function experiments, adding a furin site to make a virus more infective, are published in the open literature, including [by] Dr. Zhengli Shi, head of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
There’s more. Like I said, read the piece.