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Unless the true origin of Coronavirus is identified, another Chinese pandemic is in the offing
WION ^ | 08/14/2020 | Lawrence Sellin

Posted on 08/14/2020 8:23:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

To date, no one has stated the urgent universal need to aggressively investigate the true origin of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, better than Karl and Dan Sirotkin in their August 12, 2020 article “Might SARS‐CoV‐2 Have Arisen via Serial Passage through an Animal Host or Cell Culture?”

“Despite claims from prominent scientists that SARS‐CoV‐2 indubitably emerged naturally, the etiology of this novel coronavirus remains a pressing and open question: Without knowing the true nature of a disease, it is impossible for clinicians to appropriately shape their care, for policy‐makers to correctly gauge the nature and extent of the threat, and for the public to appropriately modify their behaviour.

As the authors correctly note, serial passage, that is, the repeated re-infection within an animal or human population allows a virus to specifically adapt to the infected species.

That process occurs naturally in the wild, but it can be greatly accelerated in the laboratory by deliberate serial passaging of viruses in cell culture systems or animals, potentially leaving few or no traces as to whether the adapted viruses are naturally-occurring or laboratory-manipulated.

That type of "gain of function" experimentation can become particularly dangerous if viruses are adapted for human infection by serial passaging them through cell cultures and animal models that have been genetically-modified to express human receptors.

There are numerous scientific publications describing serial passaging of coronaviruses through “humanised” cell cultures and animal models, thus potentially creating a new coronavirus “pre-adapted” for human infection.

At present, the scientific consensus is that SARS-CoV-2 came from bats, but how it evolved to infect humans remains unknown.

China has claimed that a bat coronavirus named RaTG13 is the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, but RaTG13 is not actually a virus because no biological samples exist. It is only a genomic sequence of a virus for which there are now serious questions about its accuracy.

In contrast, Dr Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist and whistleblower, has implied that RaTG13 may have been used to divert the world’s attention away from the true source of the COVID-19 pandemic, a novel coronavirus that originated in military laboratories overseen by China's People’s Liberation Army and created by the manipulation of Zhoushan coronaviruses ZC45 and/or ZXC21.

SARS-CoV-2 has signs of serial passaging and the direct genetic insertion of novel amino acids sequences for which no natural evolutionary pathway has been identified.

Although SARS-CoV-2 appears to have the “backbone” of bat coronaviruses, its spike protein, which is responsible for binding to the human cell and its membrane fusion-driven entry, has sections that do not appear in any closely-related bat coronaviruses.

SARS-CoV-2’s receptor binding domain, the specific element that binds to the human cell, has a ten times greater binding affinity than the first SARS virus that caused the 2002-2003 pandemic.

Furthermore, SARS-CoV-2 appears to be “pre-adapted” for human infection and has not undergone a similar natural mutation process within the human population that was observed during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.

Those observations plus the inexplicable genetic distance between SARS-CoV-2 and any of its potential bat predecessors suggest an accelerated evolutionary process obtained by laboratory-based serial passaging through genetically-engineered mouse models containing humanised receptors previously developed by China.

The other unique feature of SARS-CoV-2 is a furin polybasic cleavage site that facilitates membrane fusion between the virus and the human cell and widely known for its ability to enhance pathogenicity and transmissibility, but also is not present in any closely related bat coronaviruses.

There are no readily-available animal models to produce a unique furin polybasic cleavage site by serial passaging, but techniques for the artificial insertion of such furin polybasic cleavage sites by genetic engineering have been used for over ten years.

To paraphrase Karl and Dan Sirotkin, unless the zoonotic hosts necessary for completing a natural jump from animals to humans are identified, the dual‐use gain‐of‐function research practice of viral serial passage and the artificial insertion of unique viral features should be considered viable routes by which SARS-CoV-2 arose and the COVID-19 pandemic was initiated.

* * *

Lawrence Sellin, PhD is a retired US Army Reserve colonel. He has previously worked at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and conducted basic and clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry.


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: china; coronavirus; origins; pandemic

1 posted on 08/14/2020 8:23:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Ask Fauxi....that little traitorous commie SOB gave millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to that CCP bioweapons lab over there. He knows EXACTLY how, who and why it was developed as well as who set up the colluded planned release date.


2 posted on 08/14/2020 8:27:58 PM PDT by lgjhn23 (Libs are a virus.....the DemoVirus!!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Manufactured virus, manufactured crisis.


3 posted on 08/14/2020 8:38:14 PM PDT by wastedyears (The left would kill every single one of us and our families if they knew they could get away with it)
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To: wastedyears

Exactly.

The man who discovered the AIDS virus, who subsequently won the Nobel Prize and if I am not mistaken, sequenced the virus as well, studied the corona virus and flat out stated in so many words, “this thing is man made.”


4 posted on 08/14/2020 8:48:14 PM PDT by Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi ( Gen. 12:3: a warning to all antisemites)
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To: Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi

Herr Doktor FauxiMengele


5 posted on 08/14/2020 9:34:28 PM PDT by A strike (" Was that wrong? Should I not have done this? " - Costanza)
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To: lgjhn23; SeekAndFind; wastedyears

Why would they do the research and “gain of function” on this?

Why create this virus?


6 posted on 08/14/2020 9:53:16 PM PDT by WildHighlander57 ((WildHighlander57 returning after lurking since 2000)
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To: lgjhn23

COVID 19: YOU DON’T HAVE TO DIE!
6 MINUTE CHQ MEDICATED
SURVIVOR’S TESTIMONIAL AND
WHY FAUCI, CUOMO &
OTHERS SHOULD STAND TRIAL!
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https://www.brighteon.com/channels/benjaminmartin


7 posted on 08/14/2020 10:05:11 PM PDT by Dick Bachert (THE DEEP STATE HATES YOU!)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m don’t think bat coronaviruses can naturally infect humans anyway. So this one had to be artificially modified.


8 posted on 08/14/2020 10:27:57 PM PDT by Crucial
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To: WildHighlander57

“Why would they do the research and “gain of function” on this?

Why create this virus?”

“Gain of function” isn’t hypothetical or theoretical, it’s real. You can call it whatever you want; evolution, intelligent design, gain of function. Viruses are just easier to work with than other lab animals. In general, they’re looking for an airborne virus that causes pneumonia. The “airborne” part is the “gain of function.” (Surviving inside airborne droplets of bodily fluids doesn’t count.)

One result, of course, is a doomsday virus. Airborne viral pneumonia, to which only you have the cure, is about the cheapest way to depopulate the rest of the planet. Think of Stephen King’s “superflu” from The Stand.

Second, viruses are known to cause gain of function in other organisms. Watching it happen in the lab is a powerful first step towards being able to effect gains of function all over the animal (and plant) kingdom(s).

The problem, though, is that this is the second time their doomsday virus has escaped containment. There’s no telling how much worse it will be next time. Maybe we just nuke Wuhan and a few of the major population centers around it, wipe their virus out for them.


9 posted on 08/15/2020 4:19:00 AM PDT by Nabron
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To: Nabron

I don’t doubt that gain-of-function is real.

I was wanting to know —why— create this virus???


10 posted on 08/15/2020 8:45:57 AM PDT by WildHighlander57 ((WildHighlander57 returning after lurking since 2000)
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To: SeekAndFind

Gotta keep the fear and anxiety at a fever pitch to the first Tuesday in November ... it’s the only shot the America/American-hating Democrat/Left Party has ...


11 posted on 08/15/2020 8:46:56 AM PDT by glennaro (Prager: Being on the Left makes people cowards)
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To: SeekAndFind

It escaped or was released from the lab in Wuhan.


12 posted on 08/15/2020 10:01:55 PM PDT by JoeRender
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