Two key features of the virus have scientists convinced it evolved in nature before jumping to us.
Conspiracy theories can be found just about everywhere. Some say those UFOs in the news are truly filled with aliens and others claim that vaccines are causing autism. Others still say the novel coronavirus was actually made in a lab in China and did not come to us from animals. None of these statements has been proven to be true, to date. People do continue to debate whether or not they are, however, and some will go to great lengths to back their statements up.
In recent times, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, argued there was “enormous evidence” the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab. In early May 2020, Pompeo was quoted as saying, “I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this (COVID-19) came from that laboratory in Wuhan.”
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It is tempting to follow this argument. China has a history of being extremely secretive. A small example of this is the fact that in 1996, a law was passed in the country stating that communist government archives would be made open to the public after 30 years. This has yet to happen. In line with this, some say COVID-19 came from a lab and Chinese authorities just aren’t owning up.
It is true that China’s Hubei province is, coincidentally, home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Here, all types of viruses including coronaviruses and those found in insects, animals, and microbes have been studied and manipulated for information and knowledge since the 1980s.
An analysis of the first 41 known COVID-19 patients uncovered that 27 of them had direct exposure to Wuhan’s wet market. The very first known case, however, did not. How did this person contract the virus that causes COVID-19? Did the virus somehow “escape” from the lab, to infect the public?
Beijing rejects this claim, but also will not let foreign experts including those from the World Health Organization (WHO), help them investigate exactly where COVID-19 has come from. The whole project is being done behind closed doors. And so, there are a lot of fishy facts that add up to public suspicion. It can be easy to believe that COVID-19 really did come from Wuhan’s labs.
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A study done at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, has shown, however, that this is false. Researchers there analyzed a public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19. They compared it with genome sequence data from other known coronavirus strains. Two major indicators were present. It was found that SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins are very effective at binding human cells. In fact, they do it so well that scientists believe the virus had to have evolved in nature. Something that is the product of genetic engineering would not have been so effective, they say.
In addition, the structure of the virus makes it look like it evolved in nature. If someone were to create a new coronavirus in a lab, they would most likely make it from a virus already known to make people sick, scientists say. The novel coronavirus now in circulation was found to be different from coronaviruses that now target humans. however. It was found to be similar to those coronaviruses commonly found in pangolins and bats, however.
Is the evidence foolproof? These findings do not prove the new coronavirus did not jump the walls of a virus lab in Wuhan, but they do provide resounding evidence that it is unlikely this coronavirus was constructed as a biological weapon aimed at harming the general public throughout the world. It could have “escaped” from the lab. It likely wasn’t made there, however.
We will likely never know exactly where this virus did come from, unfortunately. Like the facts in the government archives, this information will probably never be found out.
photo credits: Mongkolchon Akesin/Shutterstock
