Wouldn't there be higher genetic diversity of the virus if this were the case?
There doesn't seem to be any real evidence for this theory in the genetic data we have.
There doesn't seem to be any real evidence for this theory in the genetic data we have.
> New research has deepened, rather than dispelled, the mystery surrounding the origin of the coronavirus responsible for Covid-19. Bats, wildlife markets, possibly pangolins and perhaps laboratories may all have played some role, but the simple story of an animal in a market infected by a bat that then infected several human beings no longer looks credible.
> A study published in early May by scientists at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and at the University of British Columbia has uncovered an unusual feature of the virus’s recent development: It has evolved too slowly. The genomes of viruses sampled from cases during the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003 showed rapid evolutionary change during the early months of the epidemic, as the virus adapted to its new host, followed by much slower change later. By contrast, samples taken from recent cases of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, have compara-tively few genetic substitutions compared with an early case from December.
> The authors, Shing Hei Zhan, Benjamin Deverman and Yujia Alina Chan, write: “We were surprised to find that SARS-CoV-2 exhibits low genetic diversity in contrast to SARS-CoV, which harbored considerable genetic diversity in its early-to-mid epidemic phase.” This implies, they argue, that “by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV.” This is potentially very good news: Because the virus is relatively stable genetically, a vaccine that works against it, if we’re able to develop one, will be more likely to work against all strains.
> The same study seems to rule out the possibility that infected animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan transmitted the virus to several human beings, as some have suggested as a point of origin. The Chinese authorities have now confirmed that no animal samples from the market were infected. This suggests that a single person brought a virus that was already adept at human transmission to the market and infected others.
https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan...
Is it just a coincidence?
Additionally, it is possible to accelerate virus gain of function by exposing it directly to the target host.
However, this is even stranger than the Chinese lab conspiracy theory, since this particular research is US funded.
I believe Dr. Fauci is advising the administration because he is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and been an advisor on epidemics to every president since Reagan.
I'm trying to make sense of the odd correlation between his involvement with the administration and that he was also instrumental in research about the very zoonosis the experts think occurred.
Perhaps it is all a coincidence. I don't know all the background probabilities involved.
It looks like the funding did cover the WIV research, from what I understand the article to say.
"The NIH research consisted of two parts. The first part began in 2014 and involved surveillance of bat coronaviruses, and had a budget of $3.7 million. The program funded Shi Zheng-Li, a virologist at the Wuhan lab, and other researchers to investigate and catalogue bat coronaviruses in the wild. This part of the project was completed in 2019."
Here's the 2015 paper co-authored by Zheng-Li Shi detailing a chimeric coronavirus that uses the SARS backbone to target ACE2, very similar to how covid-19 operates.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/
"Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV."
It makes me confused regarding the recent debunking article that claims there is no way humans can have engineered the covid-19 spike that targets ACE2, and there is no known backbone used in the covid-19 genome. Seems in contradiction to this 2015 paper.
You say that the virus in the experiment is similar to SARS-CoV-2. That just shows how little you understand what you're talking about. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You know just enough to find these conspiracy theories, but not enough to realize why they're ridiculous.
https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan...
Fauci is not personally conducting gain of function research, but he is both funding and promoting such research. Particularly, he funded the Wuhan lab to research bat to human coronavirus gain of function in 2019 before the outbreak. One of the lead researchers successfully created a chimeric virus that is similar to how covid-19 theoretically became so good at infecting humans.
Obviously, there is good reason for this research, since that's where SARS, MERS and swine flu came from, so Fauci's foresight got him a few months ahead of the covid-19 pandemic. It is quite impressive that he picked both the vector and location prior to the pandemic outbreak. Seems like we should be giving him much greater recognition for this achievement.
You mean the US NIAID is funding it? Fauci doesn't personally review and approve every (or even any) grants issued by NIAID. The NIAID director is far too busy to do that. I think it's done by scientists who volunteer their time.
> Particularly, he funded the Wuhan lab to research bat to human coronavirus gain of function in 2019 before the outbreak.
The grant doesn't appear to say anything about gain-of-function research at the WIV. Are you getting this claim from Newsweek, or have you seen it elsewhere?
> One of the lead researchers successfully created a chimeric virus that is similar to how covid-19 theoretically became so good at infecting humans.
Really? Which researcher did that, and can you cite the publication in which they describe that chimeric virus?
> It is quite impressive that he picked both the vector and location prior to the pandemic outbreak. Seems like we should be giving him much greater recognition for this achievement.
It sounds like you're saying that Fauci engineered SARS-CoV-2, but I may be misinterpreting you. Is that indeed what you're suggesting? Where did you get this claim from?
Yes, I see that the WIV associated researcher Shi Zheng-Li just provided the genetic materials, and the experiment itself was carried out by Baric.
I don't believe the lab origin theory. As you point out, all the scientists believe it is ludicrous. I am just trying to make sense of this weird connection between Fauci and the WIV with an experiment that to my uninformed mind looks like it contradicts the official debunking article's claims that recently appeared in Nature. If nothing else, I hope to improve my bioinformatics knowledge through this research :)
I don't even think the grants in question go directly to the WIV. They go to an American organization that works together with the WIV on certain projects.
The actual scandal with the grant in question is that it was canceled for political reasons, despite being highly ranked by the scientific reviewers (and how obviously critical such research is, given what the pandemic has shown us about the dangers of emerging diseases).
"The NIH established a framework for determining how the research would go forward: scientists have to get approval from a panel of experts, who would decide whether the risks were justified.
The reviews were indeed conducted—but in secret, for which the NIH has drawn criticism."
From what you are saying, it sounds like the author is making a big deal out of standard procedure.
(1) Genetic diversity increases with both time and size of the infected population. You'll get a lot more diversity if it's mutating in 4 million individuals than in 4000.
(2) For a virus this young especially, genetic diversity is not at all precise measures.
This calculation shows this common ancestor existed between mid November to December.
https://virological.org/t/phylodynamic-analysis-176-genomes-...