Interesting article on origins of SARS-CoV-2
Posted: Fri May 14, 2021 3:34 pm
It's quite a long read, but here's the link: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-ori ... -at-wuhan/
Below is a (fairly accurate) summary taken from Reddit. I've never fully bought the origin story, but equally I don't believe it's a deliberate bioweapon. Occam's Razor tells me that an accidental leak is most likely. Leaks from supposedly bio-secure labs happen quite often in the West too.
I think it's also quite concerning the aggressivity that was put towards people who questioned the Chinese narrative. Considering how dictatorship superpowers usually try to cover up "embarrassing" events (Chernobyl, Katyn) and even democratic superpowers willingly create false narratives (WMDs in Iraq), it's definitely not impossible that there is a large cover up.
Below is a (fairly accurate) summary taken from Reddit. I've never fully bought the origin story, but equally I don't believe it's a deliberate bioweapon. Occam's Razor tells me that an accidental leak is most likely. Leaks from supposedly bio-secure labs happen quite often in the West too.
I think it's also quite concerning the aggressivity that was put towards people who questioned the Chinese narrative. Considering how dictatorship superpowers usually try to cover up "embarrassing" events (Chernobyl, Katyn) and even democratic superpowers willingly create false narratives (WMDs in Iraq), it's definitely not impossible that there is a large cover up.
-in 2013 a bunch of mine workers cleaning bat guano in Yunnan province get sick and die with Covid-19 like symptoms
-samples are sent back to Wuhan 1500KM away
-Dr. Shi Zhengli (known as the bat lady) of the Wuhan Institute of Virology discovers RaTG13 which is the closest known relative of Covid-19
-Gain Of Function research is pretty much maxing every characteristic of a virus: the pathogenicity, the transmissibility, and the Antigenicity (how well it binds to receptors)
-in 2014 the Obama administration bans GOF research
-in 2015 Dr. Shi and a researcher from University of North Carolina create a novel virus using the original SARS and replacing the spike protein with a bat coronavirus they found in Yunnan to infect mice genetically altered to have human ACE2 receptors
-in 2017 the Trump administration and NIH lifts the moratorium on GOF research
-in 2018 Dr. Shi gets a grant from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (which is ran by Dr. Fauci)
-the grant is for "“Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice.”
-according to her she was aiming to create a novel coronavirus that had the highest possible infectivity for human cells
-according to Dr. Shi all this is being done at a BSL2 lower level facility
-this grant is handled by New York contractor EcoHealth Alliance ran by Peter Daszak
-on December 09, 2019 Peter Daszak gives a gleeful interview and talks about how researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology are reprogramming the spike protein and generating chimeric coronaviruses capable of infecting humanized mice (and that's a good thing)
-a few days later news comes out of an epidemic in Wuhan
-on February 19, 2020 a group of virologist came out with a statement on the Lancet "condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin"
-turns out the letter was drafted by Peter Daszak of EcoHealth
-all of Dr. Shi's research at Wuhan Institute is now sealed
some other more science specific stuff
-Covid 19 has no documented changes unlike the original SARS where researchers found it jumping from bats to civets to humans and then to the deadly form of SARS
-no animal carriers were found in the Wuhan wet market
-Covid 19 has difficulty directly infecting bats meaning a direct jump is unlikely
-the furin cleavage site (ctrl-f it I can't even explain what it is) basically it's extremely rare for it to naturally form but virologist know it is the best way to make a virus deadlier including Dr. Shi which has published literature on the furin cleavage site