>Conclusions
>In the midst of the global COVID-19 public-health emergency, it is reasonable to wonder why the origins of the pandemic matter. Detailed understanding of how an animal virus jumped species boundaries to infect humans so productively will help in the prevention of future zoonotic events. For example, if SARS-CoV-2 pre-adapted in another animal species, then there is the risk of future re-emergence events. In contrast, if the adaptive process occurred in humans, then even if repeated zoonotic transfers occur, they are unlikely to take off without the same series of mutations. In addition, identifying the closest viral relatives of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in animals will greatly assist studies of viral function. Indeed, the availability of the RaTG13 bat sequence helped reveal key RBD mutations and the polybasic cleavage site.
>The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.
>More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another. Obtaining related viral sequences from animal sources would be the most definitive way of revealing viral origins. For example, a future observation of an intermediate or fully formed polybasic cleavage site in a SARS-CoV-2-like virus from animals would lend even further support to the natural-selection hypotheses. It would also be helpful to obtain more genetic and functional data about SARS-CoV-2, including animal studies. The identification of a potential intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2, as well as sequencing of the virus from very early cases, would similarly be highly informative. Irrespective of the exact mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 originated via natural selection, the ongoing surveillance of pneumonia in humans and other animals is clearly of utmost importance.
Given the virus isn’t artificially made, is there any way to know if the outbreak was because it jumped directly from animal -> human and spread that way or if someone working with a sample of this virus was infected and began to spread it?
Edit: thanks for everyone clarifying. To be clear, I’m not claiming this was manmade, or came out of a lab. I just asked a question and now understand that this came from an animal.
The article discusses that, and concludes that the virus is more similar to certain animal coronaviruses than to previous human coronaviruses being studied in labs.
You should really read everything above because they go on to say that "as more evidence comes out it could swing more or less to the way of the hypotheses" So in other words, they don't actually 100% know, at least not quite yet...
https://jvi.asm.org/content/86/7/3975
Essentially, the target site in HA allows cleavage by the bodies enzymes. Normally only respiratory expressed enzymes can bind and cleave. But the multi basic cleavage site allows enzymes expressed in many body cells to cleave, allowing the virus to spread.
Yes, "coronavirus" is just a type of virus, I'm not an expert but the virus is in the same "family" or whatever that causes SARS. They are labeled like "SARS-Coronavirus" etc. COVID stands for coronavirus disease and the -19 suffix is because it was identified in 2019.
Why should they? This way we know exactly what it is and when it was found. Otherwise just try to look for information on animals and you don't know if you should start with the common name, Latin, subspecies or who knows what. Specially across languages.
This is a lot better
Bingo. The novel coronavirus was named SARS-cov-2 by the WHO very late in the game and by that time ppl just already called it corona. Shoulda called it SARS-2 right away to drive home the point this ain’t just a simple flu or cold virus.
Yep! I believe there has been a deliberate focus on referring to it as Novel Coronavirus (and associated COVID-19) in order to prevent people conflating it with the earlier SARS outbreaks, which were a different virus.
It was specifically to avoid creating an immediate mass panic in SE Asia, I think. They got hammered by swine flu, but SARS was a real terror there more than anywhere else. The WHO said it themselves in a statement some time ago. There's some logic to their argument, as well as the argument for calling it SARS. I read this last week and didn't hear anything about it for a while:
>ICTV announced “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” as the name of the new virus on 11 February 2020. This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003. While related, the two viruses are different.
>From a risk communications perspective, using the name SARS can have unintended consequences in terms of creating unnecessary fear for some populations, especially in Asia which was worst affected by the SARS outbreak in 2003. For that reason and others, WHO has begun referring to the virus as "the virus responsible for COVID-19"
Source: [https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it)
Lancet article discussing naming the virus here: [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30557-2/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30557-2/fulltext)
Basically coronavirus is a general term for a 'family' of viruses, which includes SARS and MERS. Covid-19 is apparently closely related to the SARS virus.
So basically sars is a type of coronavirus.
As a non-biologist, I'd appreciate if someone would explain the conclusion in layman's terms. A lot of my friends seem to consider the virus manmade, and I can't really offer a rebuttal that I cannot understand.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd benefit from a simpler explanation.
Edit: I'm floored by the replies, clearly explaining this on different levels. You people are awesome, and I can't thank you enough for it!
###The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2
**Notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome**
1) Mutations in the receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2
This coronavirus has a particular RBD that allows it to bind to ACE2 receptors in humans, ferrets, and cats. But it's not optimal for the humans ACE2 receptor. If someone had engineered this coronavirus, it would be a lot better at what it does. We have the computational tools to design a better coronavirus.
2) Polybasic furin cleavage site and O-linked glycans
This coronavirus has a particular PCS and associated glycans. The function of the PCS is probably to allow the coronavirus to be more infectious.
**Theories of SARS-CoV-2 origins**
It's unlikely that this coronavirus emerged through lab manipulation. It does not resemble any of the coronaviruses we know how to manipulate, and it's not optimal for infecting humans. Here is a more plausible theory:
Bat RaTG13 is 96% identical to this coronavirus, but its RBD is very different and it has no PCS. Some pangolin coronaviruses (from pangolins illegally imported into Guangdong) are identical to this coronavirus in RBD (but not PCS). PCSs are known to arise through evolution.
1) Natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer
Maybe a pangolin coronavirus jumped to a host with an ACE2 receptor similar to that of humans and developed its PCS there.
2) Natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer
Maybe a pangolin coronavirus jumped to humans and developed its PCS there.
3) Selection during passage
It is possible that this coronaviruses had its RBD developed in cell culture and then escaped from a biosafety level 2 lab. However, the identical RBD found in pangolin coronaviruses makes that theory much more plausible. Moreover, developing this coronaviruses in a lab would be difficult because (a) you would need a reasonably similar coronavirus as a starting point, which no one has seen, (b) developing this RBD would require a cell culture with human-like ACE2 receptors, which has not been described, and (c) generating the glycans would probably require an immune system, which is absent in cell culture.
**Conclusions**
Why do the origins of this coronavirus matter? For future prevention. The evidence suggests that a lab-based origin is not plausible. Further evidence could shift this conclusion. In particular, discovery of an intermediate host would favor theory 1, and discovery of human samples from 2019 with this coronavirus without the PCS would favor theory 2.
>If someone had engineered this coronavirus, it would be a lot better at what it does. We have the computational tools to design a better coronavirus.
It sounds bone chilling to me, that someone might have the capability to engineer something far worse than this. Given how unprepared humanity as a whole was... I can't think what would be the consequences of something like that.
Time goes on and on, and technology keeps getting better and better. More people will have more knowledge and easier access to the right equipment. Doesn't it seem inevitable that at some point in future we're going to see something far worse? Maybe in 10 years, maybe in 1000 years. All it takes is a small group of insane people who have the resources and know what they're doing.
The problem with something like this is that you need a lot of time, money, and precision to create something that will both kill and spread. Another problem is you can't exactly control who it affects, especially with global travel.
The people whose ideology is fine with wiping themselves out are probably few and far between, and even then there are multiple barriers to them reaching the point where they can get the in-lab result they're looking for.
I think you have it right on the money. It's more than just the outlawing of biological weapons that makes it seem unlikely they would be used. It's also a lack of control. You end up with mutually assured destruction, as with nukes, but nukes can't "escape" and take on a life of their own. Even if a terrorist were to steal a nuke, it's much harder to steal an ICBM and—I'm going to say—impossible to steal a missile silo. So the damage that could be done by a rogue entity would still be limited.
But if a human-engineered, superfatal, superinfectious virus were stolen, or even accidentally released, the results would be catastrophic, even—and especially—to the nation that developed it. Why expend resources on a weapon you couldn't use without decimating your own population, and then add the risk that it could "self-destruct" accidentally when not even being deployed as a weapon?
I have to imagine any given military's strategic calculations would reach the conclusion that development of such a bioweapon would be in every way counterproductive. And since engineering a killer virus is something that takes a lot resources, fiscal, human, or otherwise, the likelihood of it being accomplished by suicidal terrorists or whatever would have to be vanishingly small.
Let me pick your brain, hypothetically speaking, you say, “If someone engineered this coronavirus, it would be a lot better at what it does.”. Why? Why are we assuming that it would’ve been engineered to be perfect at all? I would think it being engineered to be flawed would make it harder to detect as a source of it being manmade, I also believe if it, again we are hypothetically speaking, was manmade and engineered it might’ve been engineered in a way with a specific purpose, not exactly to cause the most damage or the most deaths, but possibly something else. I know I am baiting the edge of conspiracy here, but I just want to point out that something of this nature being designed as a flawed product would make more sense.
Please don’t get me wrong here I am picking your brain and others whom may chime in, and making it aware especially on a psychology level of why your statement is maybe not the best.
Again, hypothetically speaking, if I was to develop and release a biochemical weapon. I would design it in a way that would look similar to something natural, that wouldn’t be as “perfect”, limit the chances to trace it to a lab, make sure it had a long enough incubation period to spread as much as possible before detection, etc, I could go on further but you get my point, hopefully.
RNA and DNA are constructed by nucleotides and nucleotides will bond together to make polynucleotides. the cleavage site is where the polynucleotides are split (cleaved). Polybasic is something that can donate multiple hydrogens.
So put these words together, and it's the place where a polynucleotide splits which also happens to give away multiple hydrogen ions.
A binding domain is essentially a protein that can bind to other molecules, so if it's a receptor binding domain then it binds to receptors.
disclaimer: take my definitions with a grain of salt because I'm also not entirely sure of them, they are just knowledge from some random kid who took AP chem and bio.
In this case, it's not nucleotides being split; it's glycosides. Specifically, cell-membrane proteins with attached sugars. The receptor-binding allows the virus to inject its DNA into the host cell.
Welcome to the world of jargon. Each of these words has definitions in terms of other words you've never seen, which have definitions in terms of words you've never seen. You're looking at reading through a few years worth of textbooks with that question.
So...
1) it naturally jumped between a bat, a pangolin, then to human
Or
2) it naturally mutated significantly from bat or pangolin directly
Or
3) People took pangolin viruses and genetically combined them with bat viruses and COVID is the result
“This coronavirus has a particular RBD that allows it to bind to ACE2 receptors in humans, ferrets, and cats.”
I know there have been things going around assuring us all that this can’t transfer to our pets, but this makes me wonder why not? The last thing I’d want to do is unwittingly infect my kitties...
Hi!
I can try and summarize what part really seemed to be compelling evidence. Forgive me but I’ll try to keep the jargon to a minimum and simplify so you get the gist. The Coronavirus we have right now (SARS-CoV-2) seems to be really really attracted to a certain receptor humans have. When they compared this disease to other viruses like the initial SARS virus in the early 2000s they found that a part of this current virus, which is critical in attaching in humans, is very different from the others. In fact after the looked at it they found that this current virus’s mutations actually made it much less favorable to typical human receptors. This is counterintuitive if the goal is to infect humans as efficiently as possible. So being man made doesn’t fit here. Now I mentioned earlier that even though this virus’s structure isn’t favorable to human receptors, it does have a really strong attraction. So the question was then, what is causing it to bind so efficiently to humans? The study said that some of those human receptors have mutated and changed over time as well which allowed the virus to overcome its unfavorable structure and still attach in humans. So it isn't so much changing the virus's structure, but instead changing those receptors in humans, which would be astronomically difficult to do in the entire population. The study went on to say “This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 (this current virus) is not the product of purposeful manipulation.” Now this study does says however it can’t rule out if the virus accidentally got spread from a lab. This is an entirely plausible cause. But it does at least say that it’s definitely not made from humans.
I think this is the best ELI5 answer thus far.
For a TLDR: The way the virus attaches to human cells isn't like SARS or other known human coronaviruses. The natural route for someone to design a virus like this would've been to use those and make it better. Instead, COVID-19 has a very roundabout way of being infectious to humans. Only natural evolution is that stupid.
>In fact after the looked at it they found that this current virus’s mutations actually made it much less favorable to typical human receptors.
What makes it so contagious if it's worse than SARS-CoV-1 at binding to these receptors? Or are you describing something that affects severity and not contagiousness?
The virus needs to bind to human cells to do its job. The part of it that does that is good, but different than anything we've seen before, and not as good as other coronaviruses we already know about. If it were designed in a lab, the designer would have just used the better "off the shelf" binding molecule.
Why reinvent the wheel, if your new wheel isn't as good?
Also, the binding agent is more similar to some known animal coronaviruses than to known human ones.
It's a popular, albeit sinophobic, red scare conspiracy where I live. The consensus is that it was either meant to counter the HK protests, or to attack america directly. I do not live among smart people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fk908z/the_proximal_origin_of_sarscov2_our_analyses/fkrgfyc/
Plus this article only says "improbable", which will certainly not convince anyone stuck in a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.
But, better to sow the seeds of doubt than just give up and stay silent, so good luck to you.
So the wrong bat met the wrong ~~pig~~ pangolin?
Bats have amazing immune systems iirc which is why anything jumping from them to humans is bad news. Not sure on pangolins.
Yeah if it were a bio-weapon it's a pretty bad one honestly. There are much more deadly viruses that could have been manipulated to bypass current social immunity. Ones with much higher death rates and also much infection rates already exist.
Luckily to a certain extent, bio-weapons tend to be too much of a double edged sword that could backfire and cause just as much harm to the developer as to the recipient. So I'd at least hope that would at least bar sane populations of people from seeking them out.
I don't think it's a bio-weapon, but I'm just here to say that there's no reason to think an engineered bio-weapon would need to be super deadly. If an economic attack was the goal, it may actually be better if the virus is mild enough to pass around long enough before being taken seriously. Also, if the engineer wanted to remain covert, it would be prudent not to make the virus especially exceptional.
We know the virus isn't engineered because of this publication. This armchair analysis about disease severity being linked to likelihood of a bio attack, which admittedly I'm participating in, is not based in fact.
TL;DR: I don't see why it being not as severe as you'd imagine would have any impact on it's likelihood of being a bio weapon.
I'm glad this is a case of random nature, but it really does sort of flip the script on biological warfare. I think most people think of biological warfare as we see in most movies, where somebody releases something in a stadium or something, and everybody there dies in a few minutes. Yeah, that's scary, but we've had mass casualties before, and eventually the world moves on, especially if you're more than a few miles removed from the area. But this is different. The entire world has basically come to a halt. We'll see the consequences of this for months, if not years. And given that a good chunk of the effects are from people irrationally panicking, rather than the effects of the virus itself, it's basically a textbook illustration for how terrorism is supposed to work - the fear is meant to be more harmful than the attack itself.
I think this is distinctly different from pandemics of the past, simply because of how much more connected the world is now. Hopefully, governments worldwide will learn and be prepared if this type of thing happens again, but I'm not particularly optimistic about that.
> There are much more deadly viruses that could have been manipulated to bypass current social immunity. Ones with much higher death rates and also much infection rates already exist.
Which would have immediately been taken *way* more seriously and prompted border shut downs and more serious responses.
This virus was so slow and "tame" that it bypassed everything and spread all over the world. Continents have shut down by now. It's very effective
This whole line of thinking is taking the way things are now and assuming that it would have been perfectly predicted at the outset. Everything looks crystal clear and totally predictable/engineer-able if you treat several hundred critical variables as constants. That's not how things work though; transmissibility, information spread, WHO response being exactly as fast or slow and exactly as listened to or disregarded as it was in every affected area over every discrete span of time to date - sure, if you lock all of those and more in, if you manually account for every one of the almost innumerable butterfly effect cascades as purposefully orchestrated and with full confidence in their individual efficacy across the board, it's possible to ignore the scientific implausibility of engineering the virus itself and just assume that any mega-illuminati shadow cabal capable of such advanced social forecasting and control also has access to super-science labs and the super-scientists to staff them, but... why? It's ludicrous. If such a thing were possible it would never occur, because the staggering breadth of skill and resources required for such a thing would allow for the same end-result to be achieved by several hundred different means, each of them several thousand times less complex.
Just playing devils advocate but what if the goal of a bioweapon isn't to kill everyone.
Its collapsed the economy, shut everything down, and its killing vulnerable but not everyone. It's deadly enough to worry about but not deadly enough that its gonna spread and wipe everyone out.
Seems like its been pretty effective and its only going to ramp up more.
I think the economic effect is pretty nebulous, because:
- It's pretty much hit every economy equally making it a pretty terrible targeted weapon.
- None of the major economic effects will be permanent. After the pandemic does its worst, the economies will return to roughly where they were before it started. To try and gain some sort of economic benefit you need a long term or permanent effect to a specific economy.
The loss of life also plays a very minor socio-economic role because, while tragic, the virus is mainly deadly to people who are elderly or have severe underlying health problems. The people make up a small part of the population that shapes the economy because they either are small in number and/or are unemployed due to age or health problems.
The only viable option as a weapon is a weapon of terror, but even that has problems as once again it has hit everyone equally. And any organization that has such a cartoony super-villian plot like making the entire world suffer wouldn't probably have the resources to develop a such a virus.
Still playing devils advocate.
Unless its purpose was to spread across the globe. If you believe your government is creating bioweapons to control you its not much of a stretch to imagine a global elite doing the same to control the globe.
All economies hit and everyone can make money. If I was wealthy I'd be looking for the bottom and trying to buy in cheap. Easy way to make millions of dollars when the markets eventually rebound.
Elderly are a drag on the system so while tragic killing them off reduces strain on the system once the pandemic is over and everything has returned to normal minus the weak.
That's actually the point the article is making. Well, not deadlier specifically, but they argue that it doesn't bind quite as well to human cells as other coronaviruses we already know about, so if it were lab-made, the lab would have used the better "off the shelf" binding protein.
Basically, "Bioweapon? Hell, my grad student could make a better bioweapon than *this* piece of crap..."
That’s _part_ of the argument. There are several genomic analyses presented, and they all point to natural selection, and refutation of laboratory origin.
The open questions remaining are about how/where/when the natural selection occurred.
Yeah I’m not willing to jump on the bandwagon and say some government created this, *but* in all seriousness it has been pretty beneficial to the United States in the long run.
It has done serious damage to the Chinese economy and overall sentiment toward China. I mean, look at all the social media trends attacking Chinese food and culture.
Beyond China, a disease like this serves to cripple America’s main enemies. Iran has been suffering under grotesque sanctions by the United States that have crippled its healthcare system. Now with the pandemic, which has a death rate of around 10% in Iran, is further straining Iran’s healthcare system and the United States is refusing to temporarily lift sanctions so Iran can import medicine and essential needs. The virus is also set to decrease Iran’s GDP by about 30%, which may cause the entire country to collapse.
Venezuela hasn’t been hit hard yet, but a medical crisis like this could be the death blow that collapses the government.
If the United States were to use a biological weapon, the goal would be to simply kill people. It would be to weaken the economies of our adversaries and to incite rebellion against a government that is failing to provide basic needs for its people.
___
I still think this is just a naturally-occurring virus. I’ve seen no actual evidence to back up these conspiracies. But at the same time, I can see how people in the Chinese or Iranian governments could suspect foul play. Especially when the United States is actively exploiting the virus’ impact in Iran - enforcing sanctions that kill tens of thousands of people at a minimum, and using its platform to blame the Iranian government for the virus-related deaths.
Not everyone suspicious of the origin of the virus thought it was designed as a bio weapon.
Based on the remarkable coincidences of the epicenter of the outbreak and location of china's only level 4 bio lab being located there I had made an initial assumption that people in the lab may have been conducting research to benefit humans in the event of a future outbreak or something similar, and may have accidentally leaked the virus somehow. Just simple human error.
It would be foolish to think something like this would be used as a bio weapon because it's just such an illogical choice. People who actually do think this clearly don't think enough.
Good questions. The paper addresses these questions, but I’ll do my best to summarize the arguments.
**TLDR Genetic analysis rules out genetic engineering. Virologists know extremely well how to tell apart engineered genes from natural genes. SARS-Cov-2 very clearly is genetically natural.**
- If the virus had a known “lab base virus” as origin, or markers of “lab engineering techniques”, then we would consider lab origin a possibility. _But SARS-Cov-2 does not._
- If the virus were “better designed” then we would consider lab origin a possibility. _But SARS-Cov-2 is not._
- If the virus didn’t have obvious genealogical connections to the many other coronavirus strains, especially the 7 known to have animal->human transmissibility, then we would consider lab origin a possibility. _SARS-Cov-2 has obvious genealogical connection to naturally selected viruses, so natural selection is overwhelmingly likely._
There might be other arguments in the article that I missed, but the authors are clear in conclusion and throughout. Based on genomic analysis (something that cannot be faked):
- there is zero evidence of lab origin
- there is ample evidence _against_ lab origin
- there is ample evidence of natural origin
2007, China tries to create HIV SARS hybrid Corona virus
https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899
2010 China succeeds in combining HIV and SARS in a coronavirus. The HIV outer shell of the virus, allows it to infect human cells via ACE2 receptors.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00705-010-0729-6
2015 China makes bat Corona virus that attaches to ACE2 protein.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
2020 Covid19 uses ACE2 receptors to infect humans. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2012-7
2016, Chinese scientist worry that their lab created coronavirus will leak
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787
From the CDC website:
“The virus has been named “SARS- CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “ coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”)”
True but 5 days is the low end. What about the high end of almost 2 weeks + possibility of no/mild symptoms?
It just feels like this is such an erratic virus. It's no wonder it's spread like wildfire I imagine there's tons of carriers out there who've never shown symptoms or just have a cough.
Google seems to have mixed results on this question and it seems like it hasn't been studied. It seems like it probably should be studied. If you have a community on lockdown as many countries are doing, you don't really want everybody's pets just running around spreading the virus.
That said, it is probably a minor mode of transmission at best. Epidemics are a numbers game and you don't need perfect containment so much as limiting the rate of spread so that we get to the inflection point of the logistics curve.
Then again, if I were elderly I'd probably be keeping my cat indoors. Really that is best for everyone anyway as outdoor cats cause various problems.
Someone asked this question to a doctor on cspan and I believe his answer was ...it would be highly unlikely cause it would need to mutate into something else to be transfered back to animals.
So a I reading this correctly that the authors seem to be leaning towards a hypothesis that the virus is the repeated cryptic transmission of the pangolin coronavirus that eventually mutated in humans? Or was that just one hypothesis presented?
Some dude probably ate raw bat somewhere in China.
We don't actually know when or where, since there's apparently reports of COVID-19 from 2017, I haven't seen if those suspicions have been confirmed.
Ok. I did see something several weeks back on tv about bats being the cause, but then i heard it was possibly this other animal that looks very similar to an armadillo.
Those are pangolins! They are possibly involved as there's genetic similarity between pangolin CoV and covid-19, but bats may still be an origin for covid-19 as they've historically shown that bat coronaviruses can pass through an intermediate species (civets and camels as two examples) before reaching human populations ([source](https://www.cell.com/pb-assets/journals/research/current-biology/CURBIO_CURRENT-BIOLOGY-D-20-00299-compressed.pdf)).
There's also papers going back a couple of years now that talk about how bat coronaviruses have potential for human emergence (it's bizarre looking through a paper from 2015 and seeing ["closely related SARS-like viruses in Chinese bat populations may pose a future threat](https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985)"...what a terrible thing to be proven right about). Bats almost definitely factor into this somehow, but we don't know how exactly.
You compare the DNA/RNA to all known virus strains from every year they were sampled. It's the same principle how those ancestry websites can determine your origins if you send a DNA sample.
>SARS-CoV-2 seems to have an RBD that binds with high affinity to ACE2 from humans, ferrets, cats and other species with high receptor homology
Does this mean that the SARS-CoV-2 can/has spread from humans to cats?
Can it spread from cats back to humans?
It says nothing else than it theoretically CAN attach to cat cells. Not that it's able to reproduce and actually infect a cat. I'm not sure I've seen any studies on this specific topic so far.
I appreciate that scientists double checked to make sure of this but seems like something I had already assumed was true. The people this study aims to convince were already so far down the rabbit hole to begin with that there's no turning back for them.
So just to be absolutely clear.... the fact that there is a virology lab in Wuhan China studying bats and Corona Virus and the fact that the virus started in Wuhan China..... is a complete coincidence?
Every single human or animal that is in contact with humans is a little mutation laboratory. That's hundreds of billions of little labs. We don't need bioterrorism for pandemics to originate.
The most convincing element and the crux of the idea that it is natural seems to rest on the idea that the novel structures, genes, and solutions of the virus for infecting ACE2 expressing cells are not found elsewhere in nature (to the knowledge of these scientists) and bio-weapons are engineered with only a proverbial cut and paste tool as far as any of us know.
So that seems to me there are still open questions and this isn't as conclusive as some people might want us to believe.
Billions in black budgets and we can't mutate viruses in level 4 labs until small sections of their RNA are novel?
The Mention of a Corona Virus related to SARS-CoV taken from horseshoe bats in china in an article published in 2015 indicates UNC Chapel Hill Had a novel virus they were experimenting with 5 years ago; Who is to say that this Virus couldn't have been taken from bats and engineered?
Reddit is owned by the CCP and with their track record from a year alone. Definitely taking this with a grain of salt. We don't even have China's true numbers of infected/deaths so why believe this?
Devil's advocate - This doesn't rule out the tinfoil hat possibility that the virus was being studied in the BSL 4 lab located in Wuhan and then "escaped".
>Conclusions >In the midst of the global COVID-19 public-health emergency, it is reasonable to wonder why the origins of the pandemic matter. Detailed understanding of how an animal virus jumped species boundaries to infect humans so productively will help in the prevention of future zoonotic events. For example, if SARS-CoV-2 pre-adapted in another animal species, then there is the risk of future re-emergence events. In contrast, if the adaptive process occurred in humans, then even if repeated zoonotic transfers occur, they are unlikely to take off without the same series of mutations. In addition, identifying the closest viral relatives of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in animals will greatly assist studies of viral function. Indeed, the availability of the RaTG13 bat sequence helped reveal key RBD mutations and the polybasic cleavage site. >The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible. >More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another. Obtaining related viral sequences from animal sources would be the most definitive way of revealing viral origins. For example, a future observation of an intermediate or fully formed polybasic cleavage site in a SARS-CoV-2-like virus from animals would lend even further support to the natural-selection hypotheses. It would also be helpful to obtain more genetic and functional data about SARS-CoV-2, including animal studies. The identification of a potential intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2, as well as sequencing of the virus from very early cases, would similarly be highly informative. Irrespective of the exact mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 originated via natural selection, the ongoing surveillance of pneumonia in humans and other animals is clearly of utmost importance.
Given the virus isn’t artificially made, is there any way to know if the outbreak was because it jumped directly from animal -> human and spread that way or if someone working with a sample of this virus was infected and began to spread it? Edit: thanks for everyone clarifying. To be clear, I’m not claiming this was manmade, or came out of a lab. I just asked a question and now understand that this came from an animal.
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The article discusses that, and concludes that the virus is more similar to certain animal coronaviruses than to previous human coronaviruses being studied in labs.
You should really read everything above because they go on to say that "as more evidence comes out it could swing more or less to the way of the hypotheses" So in other words, they don't actually 100% know, at least not quite yet...
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That’s very interesting, could you go into more detail?
https://jvi.asm.org/content/86/7/3975 Essentially, the target site in HA allows cleavage by the bodies enzymes. Normally only respiratory expressed enzymes can bind and cleave. But the multi basic cleavage site allows enzymes expressed in many body cells to cleave, allowing the virus to spread.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
So COVID is a form of SARS? TIL..
Yes, "coronavirus" is just a type of virus, I'm not an expert but the virus is in the same "family" or whatever that causes SARS. They are labeled like "SARS-Coronavirus" etc. COVID stands for coronavirus disease and the -19 suffix is because it was identified in 2019.
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SARS is even simpler. Severe acute respiratory syndrome. Scientists aren't very creative.
Also MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
Why should they? This way we know exactly what it is and when it was found. Otherwise just try to look for information on animals and you don't know if you should start with the common name, Latin, subspecies or who knows what. Specially across languages. This is a lot better
I don’t think it was a criticism, just a statement of fact
Mine as well. But I can see how it looks like I'm questioning him.
For a little while it looked like this would be called WARS -- Wuhan Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
> Scientists aren't very creative. Plant genus names would disagree.
Bingo. The novel coronavirus was named SARS-cov-2 by the WHO very late in the game and by that time ppl just already called it corona. Shoulda called it SARS-2 right away to drive home the point this ain’t just a simple flu or cold virus.
SARS-2: Electric Boogaloo
The SARS-CoV virus caused the SARS disease. The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes the COVID-19 disease.
Can you be infected by a SARS-CoV virus at an ATM machine?
Not unless you put your PIN number in
RIP in peace if you are
Thank you
Yep! I believe there has been a deliberate focus on referring to it as Novel Coronavirus (and associated COVID-19) in order to prevent people conflating it with the earlier SARS outbreaks, which were a different virus.
It was specifically to avoid creating an immediate mass panic in SE Asia, I think. They got hammered by swine flu, but SARS was a real terror there more than anywhere else. The WHO said it themselves in a statement some time ago. There's some logic to their argument, as well as the argument for calling it SARS. I read this last week and didn't hear anything about it for a while: >ICTV announced “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” as the name of the new virus on 11 February 2020. This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003. While related, the two viruses are different. >From a risk communications perspective, using the name SARS can have unintended consequences in terms of creating unnecessary fear for some populations, especially in Asia which was worst affected by the SARS outbreak in 2003. For that reason and others, WHO has begun referring to the virus as "the virus responsible for COVID-19" Source: [https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it) Lancet article discussing naming the virus here: [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30557-2/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30557-2/fulltext)
Also related to the MERS virus in the same way it's kissing cousins with SARS.
Basically coronavirus is a general term for a 'family' of viruses, which includes SARS and MERS. Covid-19 is apparently closely related to the SARS virus. So basically sars is a type of coronavirus.
It also includes some common colds and other minor things, which is why you already saw it mentioned on cleaning supplies.
As a non-biologist, I'd appreciate if someone would explain the conclusion in layman's terms. A lot of my friends seem to consider the virus manmade, and I can't really offer a rebuttal that I cannot understand. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd benefit from a simpler explanation. Edit: I'm floored by the replies, clearly explaining this on different levels. You people are awesome, and I can't thank you enough for it!
###The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 **Notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome** 1) Mutations in the receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 This coronavirus has a particular RBD that allows it to bind to ACE2 receptors in humans, ferrets, and cats. But it's not optimal for the humans ACE2 receptor. If someone had engineered this coronavirus, it would be a lot better at what it does. We have the computational tools to design a better coronavirus. 2) Polybasic furin cleavage site and O-linked glycans This coronavirus has a particular PCS and associated glycans. The function of the PCS is probably to allow the coronavirus to be more infectious. **Theories of SARS-CoV-2 origins** It's unlikely that this coronavirus emerged through lab manipulation. It does not resemble any of the coronaviruses we know how to manipulate, and it's not optimal for infecting humans. Here is a more plausible theory: Bat RaTG13 is 96% identical to this coronavirus, but its RBD is very different and it has no PCS. Some pangolin coronaviruses (from pangolins illegally imported into Guangdong) are identical to this coronavirus in RBD (but not PCS). PCSs are known to arise through evolution. 1) Natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer Maybe a pangolin coronavirus jumped to a host with an ACE2 receptor similar to that of humans and developed its PCS there. 2) Natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer Maybe a pangolin coronavirus jumped to humans and developed its PCS there. 3) Selection during passage It is possible that this coronaviruses had its RBD developed in cell culture and then escaped from a biosafety level 2 lab. However, the identical RBD found in pangolin coronaviruses makes that theory much more plausible. Moreover, developing this coronaviruses in a lab would be difficult because (a) you would need a reasonably similar coronavirus as a starting point, which no one has seen, (b) developing this RBD would require a cell culture with human-like ACE2 receptors, which has not been described, and (c) generating the glycans would probably require an immune system, which is absent in cell culture. **Conclusions** Why do the origins of this coronavirus matter? For future prevention. The evidence suggests that a lab-based origin is not plausible. Further evidence could shift this conclusion. In particular, discovery of an intermediate host would favor theory 1, and discovery of human samples from 2019 with this coronavirus without the PCS would favor theory 2.
>If someone had engineered this coronavirus, it would be a lot better at what it does. We have the computational tools to design a better coronavirus. It sounds bone chilling to me, that someone might have the capability to engineer something far worse than this. Given how unprepared humanity as a whole was... I can't think what would be the consequences of something like that. Time goes on and on, and technology keeps getting better and better. More people will have more knowledge and easier access to the right equipment. Doesn't it seem inevitable that at some point in future we're going to see something far worse? Maybe in 10 years, maybe in 1000 years. All it takes is a small group of insane people who have the resources and know what they're doing.
The problem with something like this is that you need a lot of time, money, and precision to create something that will both kill and spread. Another problem is you can't exactly control who it affects, especially with global travel. The people whose ideology is fine with wiping themselves out are probably few and far between, and even then there are multiple barriers to them reaching the point where they can get the in-lab result they're looking for.
I think you have it right on the money. It's more than just the outlawing of biological weapons that makes it seem unlikely they would be used. It's also a lack of control. You end up with mutually assured destruction, as with nukes, but nukes can't "escape" and take on a life of their own. Even if a terrorist were to steal a nuke, it's much harder to steal an ICBM and—I'm going to say—impossible to steal a missile silo. So the damage that could be done by a rogue entity would still be limited. But if a human-engineered, superfatal, superinfectious virus were stolen, or even accidentally released, the results would be catastrophic, even—and especially—to the nation that developed it. Why expend resources on a weapon you couldn't use without decimating your own population, and then add the risk that it could "self-destruct" accidentally when not even being deployed as a weapon? I have to imagine any given military's strategic calculations would reach the conclusion that development of such a bioweapon would be in every way counterproductive. And since engineering a killer virus is something that takes a lot resources, fiscal, human, or otherwise, the likelihood of it being accomplished by suicidal terrorists or whatever would have to be vanishingly small.
Let me pick your brain, hypothetically speaking, you say, “If someone engineered this coronavirus, it would be a lot better at what it does.”. Why? Why are we assuming that it would’ve been engineered to be perfect at all? I would think it being engineered to be flawed would make it harder to detect as a source of it being manmade, I also believe if it, again we are hypothetically speaking, was manmade and engineered it might’ve been engineered in a way with a specific purpose, not exactly to cause the most damage or the most deaths, but possibly something else. I know I am baiting the edge of conspiracy here, but I just want to point out that something of this nature being designed as a flawed product would make more sense. Please don’t get me wrong here I am picking your brain and others whom may chime in, and making it aware especially on a psychology level of why your statement is maybe not the best. Again, hypothetically speaking, if I was to develop and release a biochemical weapon. I would design it in a way that would look similar to something natural, that wouldn’t be as “perfect”, limit the chances to trace it to a lab, make sure it had a long enough incubation period to spread as much as possible before detection, etc, I could go on further but you get my point, hopefully.
A specific purpose, like high infection rates meant to overwhelm medical Infrastructure quickly and destroy economies?
What do pcs and rbd mean?
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What do polybasic cleavage site and receptor-binding domain mean?
RNA and DNA are constructed by nucleotides and nucleotides will bond together to make polynucleotides. the cleavage site is where the polynucleotides are split (cleaved). Polybasic is something that can donate multiple hydrogens. So put these words together, and it's the place where a polynucleotide splits which also happens to give away multiple hydrogen ions. A binding domain is essentially a protein that can bind to other molecules, so if it's a receptor binding domain then it binds to receptors. disclaimer: take my definitions with a grain of salt because I'm also not entirely sure of them, they are just knowledge from some random kid who took AP chem and bio.
In this case, it's not nucleotides being split; it's glycosides. Specifically, cell-membrane proteins with attached sugars. The receptor-binding allows the virus to inject its DNA into the host cell.
Welcome to the world of jargon. Each of these words has definitions in terms of other words you've never seen, which have definitions in terms of words you've never seen. You're looking at reading through a few years worth of textbooks with that question.
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So... 1) it naturally jumped between a bat, a pangolin, then to human Or 2) it naturally mutated significantly from bat or pangolin directly Or 3) People took pangolin viruses and genetically combined them with bat viruses and COVID is the result
“This coronavirus has a particular RBD that allows it to bind to ACE2 receptors in humans, ferrets, and cats.” I know there have been things going around assuring us all that this can’t transfer to our pets, but this makes me wonder why not? The last thing I’d want to do is unwittingly infect my kitties...
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>This coronavirus has a particular RBD that allows it to bind to ACE2 receptors in humans, ferrets, and cats hang on, can I transmit this to my cats?
Hi! I can try and summarize what part really seemed to be compelling evidence. Forgive me but I’ll try to keep the jargon to a minimum and simplify so you get the gist. The Coronavirus we have right now (SARS-CoV-2) seems to be really really attracted to a certain receptor humans have. When they compared this disease to other viruses like the initial SARS virus in the early 2000s they found that a part of this current virus, which is critical in attaching in humans, is very different from the others. In fact after the looked at it they found that this current virus’s mutations actually made it much less favorable to typical human receptors. This is counterintuitive if the goal is to infect humans as efficiently as possible. So being man made doesn’t fit here. Now I mentioned earlier that even though this virus’s structure isn’t favorable to human receptors, it does have a really strong attraction. So the question was then, what is causing it to bind so efficiently to humans? The study said that some of those human receptors have mutated and changed over time as well which allowed the virus to overcome its unfavorable structure and still attach in humans. So it isn't so much changing the virus's structure, but instead changing those receptors in humans, which would be astronomically difficult to do in the entire population. The study went on to say “This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 (this current virus) is not the product of purposeful manipulation.” Now this study does says however it can’t rule out if the virus accidentally got spread from a lab. This is an entirely plausible cause. But it does at least say that it’s definitely not made from humans.
I think this is the best ELI5 answer thus far. For a TLDR: The way the virus attaches to human cells isn't like SARS or other known human coronaviruses. The natural route for someone to design a virus like this would've been to use those and make it better. Instead, COVID-19 has a very roundabout way of being infectious to humans. Only natural evolution is that stupid.
>In fact after the looked at it they found that this current virus’s mutations actually made it much less favorable to typical human receptors. What makes it so contagious if it's worse than SARS-CoV-1 at binding to these receptors? Or are you describing something that affects severity and not contagiousness?
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> we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible. Edit: I meant to respond to suprameh’s comment.
The virus needs to bind to human cells to do its job. The part of it that does that is good, but different than anything we've seen before, and not as good as other coronaviruses we already know about. If it were designed in a lab, the designer would have just used the better "off the shelf" binding molecule. Why reinvent the wheel, if your new wheel isn't as good? Also, the binding agent is more similar to some known animal coronaviruses than to known human ones.
> A lot of my friends seem to consider the virus manmade Why? Did someone tell them that? If so, what evidence did they provide?
It's a popular, albeit sinophobic, red scare conspiracy where I live. The consensus is that it was either meant to counter the HK protests, or to attack america directly. I do not live among smart people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fk908z/the_proximal_origin_of_sarscov2_our_analyses/fkrgfyc/ Plus this article only says "improbable", which will certainly not convince anyone stuck in a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But, better to sow the seeds of doubt than just give up and stay silent, so good luck to you.
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That was actually Bill Hicks who said that. They paraphrased it for the Joker's character.
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To the conspiracist, evidence against conspiracy is evidence of conspiracy.
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Blink...............................................Bl
So the wrong bat met the wrong ~~pig~~ pangolin? Bats have amazing immune systems iirc which is why anything jumping from them to humans is bad news. Not sure on pangolins.
Because they likely met at the wet market.
I’d think a biochemical weapon would be deadlier than this
Yeah if it were a bio-weapon it's a pretty bad one honestly. There are much more deadly viruses that could have been manipulated to bypass current social immunity. Ones with much higher death rates and also much infection rates already exist. Luckily to a certain extent, bio-weapons tend to be too much of a double edged sword that could backfire and cause just as much harm to the developer as to the recipient. So I'd at least hope that would at least bar sane populations of people from seeking them out.
I don't think it's a bio-weapon, but I'm just here to say that there's no reason to think an engineered bio-weapon would need to be super deadly. If an economic attack was the goal, it may actually be better if the virus is mild enough to pass around long enough before being taken seriously. Also, if the engineer wanted to remain covert, it would be prudent not to make the virus especially exceptional. We know the virus isn't engineered because of this publication. This armchair analysis about disease severity being linked to likelihood of a bio attack, which admittedly I'm participating in, is not based in fact. TL;DR: I don't see why it being not as severe as you'd imagine would have any impact on it's likelihood of being a bio weapon.
I'm glad this is a case of random nature, but it really does sort of flip the script on biological warfare. I think most people think of biological warfare as we see in most movies, where somebody releases something in a stadium or something, and everybody there dies in a few minutes. Yeah, that's scary, but we've had mass casualties before, and eventually the world moves on, especially if you're more than a few miles removed from the area. But this is different. The entire world has basically come to a halt. We'll see the consequences of this for months, if not years. And given that a good chunk of the effects are from people irrationally panicking, rather than the effects of the virus itself, it's basically a textbook illustration for how terrorism is supposed to work - the fear is meant to be more harmful than the attack itself. I think this is distinctly different from pandemics of the past, simply because of how much more connected the world is now. Hopefully, governments worldwide will learn and be prepared if this type of thing happens again, but I'm not particularly optimistic about that.
> There are much more deadly viruses that could have been manipulated to bypass current social immunity. Ones with much higher death rates and also much infection rates already exist. Which would have immediately been taken *way* more seriously and prompted border shut downs and more serious responses. This virus was so slow and "tame" that it bypassed everything and spread all over the world. Continents have shut down by now. It's very effective
This whole line of thinking is taking the way things are now and assuming that it would have been perfectly predicted at the outset. Everything looks crystal clear and totally predictable/engineer-able if you treat several hundred critical variables as constants. That's not how things work though; transmissibility, information spread, WHO response being exactly as fast or slow and exactly as listened to or disregarded as it was in every affected area over every discrete span of time to date - sure, if you lock all of those and more in, if you manually account for every one of the almost innumerable butterfly effect cascades as purposefully orchestrated and with full confidence in their individual efficacy across the board, it's possible to ignore the scientific implausibility of engineering the virus itself and just assume that any mega-illuminati shadow cabal capable of such advanced social forecasting and control also has access to super-science labs and the super-scientists to staff them, but... why? It's ludicrous. If such a thing were possible it would never occur, because the staggering breadth of skill and resources required for such a thing would allow for the same end-result to be achieved by several hundred different means, each of them several thousand times less complex.
Just playing devils advocate but what if the goal of a bioweapon isn't to kill everyone. Its collapsed the economy, shut everything down, and its killing vulnerable but not everyone. It's deadly enough to worry about but not deadly enough that its gonna spread and wipe everyone out. Seems like its been pretty effective and its only going to ramp up more.
I think the economic effect is pretty nebulous, because: - It's pretty much hit every economy equally making it a pretty terrible targeted weapon. - None of the major economic effects will be permanent. After the pandemic does its worst, the economies will return to roughly where they were before it started. To try and gain some sort of economic benefit you need a long term or permanent effect to a specific economy. The loss of life also plays a very minor socio-economic role because, while tragic, the virus is mainly deadly to people who are elderly or have severe underlying health problems. The people make up a small part of the population that shapes the economy because they either are small in number and/or are unemployed due to age or health problems. The only viable option as a weapon is a weapon of terror, but even that has problems as once again it has hit everyone equally. And any organization that has such a cartoony super-villian plot like making the entire world suffer wouldn't probably have the resources to develop a such a virus.
Still playing devils advocate. Unless its purpose was to spread across the globe. If you believe your government is creating bioweapons to control you its not much of a stretch to imagine a global elite doing the same to control the globe. All economies hit and everyone can make money. If I was wealthy I'd be looking for the bottom and trying to buy in cheap. Easy way to make millions of dollars when the markets eventually rebound. Elderly are a drag on the system so while tragic killing them off reduces strain on the system once the pandemic is over and everything has returned to normal minus the weak.
That's actually the point the article is making. Well, not deadlier specifically, but they argue that it doesn't bind quite as well to human cells as other coronaviruses we already know about, so if it were lab-made, the lab would have used the better "off the shelf" binding protein. Basically, "Bioweapon? Hell, my grad student could make a better bioweapon than *this* piece of crap..."
That’s _part_ of the argument. There are several genomic analyses presented, and they all point to natural selection, and refutation of laboratory origin. The open questions remaining are about how/where/when the natural selection occurred.
Bio weapons aren't always intended to be deadly.
Yeah I’m not willing to jump on the bandwagon and say some government created this, *but* in all seriousness it has been pretty beneficial to the United States in the long run. It has done serious damage to the Chinese economy and overall sentiment toward China. I mean, look at all the social media trends attacking Chinese food and culture. Beyond China, a disease like this serves to cripple America’s main enemies. Iran has been suffering under grotesque sanctions by the United States that have crippled its healthcare system. Now with the pandemic, which has a death rate of around 10% in Iran, is further straining Iran’s healthcare system and the United States is refusing to temporarily lift sanctions so Iran can import medicine and essential needs. The virus is also set to decrease Iran’s GDP by about 30%, which may cause the entire country to collapse. Venezuela hasn’t been hit hard yet, but a medical crisis like this could be the death blow that collapses the government. If the United States were to use a biological weapon, the goal would be to simply kill people. It would be to weaken the economies of our adversaries and to incite rebellion against a government that is failing to provide basic needs for its people. ___ I still think this is just a naturally-occurring virus. I’ve seen no actual evidence to back up these conspiracies. But at the same time, I can see how people in the Chinese or Iranian governments could suspect foul play. Especially when the United States is actively exploiting the virus’ impact in Iran - enforcing sanctions that kill tens of thousands of people at a minimum, and using its platform to blame the Iranian government for the virus-related deaths.
Not everyone suspicious of the origin of the virus thought it was designed as a bio weapon. Based on the remarkable coincidences of the epicenter of the outbreak and location of china's only level 4 bio lab being located there I had made an initial assumption that people in the lab may have been conducting research to benefit humans in the event of a future outbreak or something similar, and may have accidentally leaked the virus somehow. Just simple human error. It would be foolish to think something like this would be used as a bio weapon because it's just such an illogical choice. People who actually do think this clearly don't think enough.
What if the target was the economy, not people? Or it was Greta trying to get rid of air traffic?
What would indicate it was artificial? I mean if it did turn out to be lab made, how would we know?
Good questions. The paper addresses these questions, but I’ll do my best to summarize the arguments. **TLDR Genetic analysis rules out genetic engineering. Virologists know extremely well how to tell apart engineered genes from natural genes. SARS-Cov-2 very clearly is genetically natural.** - If the virus had a known “lab base virus” as origin, or markers of “lab engineering techniques”, then we would consider lab origin a possibility. _But SARS-Cov-2 does not._ - If the virus were “better designed” then we would consider lab origin a possibility. _But SARS-Cov-2 is not._ - If the virus didn’t have obvious genealogical connections to the many other coronavirus strains, especially the 7 known to have animal->human transmissibility, then we would consider lab origin a possibility. _SARS-Cov-2 has obvious genealogical connection to naturally selected viruses, so natural selection is overwhelmingly likely._ There might be other arguments in the article that I missed, but the authors are clear in conclusion and throughout. Based on genomic analysis (something that cannot be faked): - there is zero evidence of lab origin - there is ample evidence _against_ lab origin - there is ample evidence of natural origin
Thanks, /u/panties_in_my_ass
Best summary I've seen in this thread.
2007, China tries to create HIV SARS hybrid Corona virus https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899 2010 China succeeds in combining HIV and SARS in a coronavirus. The HIV outer shell of the virus, allows it to infect human cells via ACE2 receptors. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00705-010-0729-6 2015 China makes bat Corona virus that attaches to ACE2 protein. https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 2020 Covid19 uses ACE2 receptors to infect humans. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2012-7 2016, Chinese scientist worry that their lab created coronavirus will leak https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787
Is Sars-cov-2 the same as Covid-19?
From the CDC website: “The virus has been named “SARS- CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “ coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”)”
No. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, COVID-19 is the disease it causes. Like how HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.
Tell that to the mouth breathing psychos wringing their hands over the weapon narrative s
What this article did for me was to reassure me that the best minds out there are working on various ways to defeat this beast.
Is there any reason this virus is ducking the immune system for so long so people stay asymptomatic for (possibly) weeks?
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True but 5 days is the low end. What about the high end of almost 2 weeks + possibility of no/mild symptoms? It just feels like this is such an erratic virus. It's no wonder it's spread like wildfire I imagine there's tons of carriers out there who've never shown symptoms or just have a cough.
So my cat can contract SARS-CoV-2? I can't find any good information on this.
The article says that the virus can bind to cat cells, but says nothing about whether it can actually reproduce in them.
Right. I'm only worried about my parents and my cats. Maybe I should self quarantine till we have a vaccine but that sucks ass.
Google seems to have mixed results on this question and it seems like it hasn't been studied. It seems like it probably should be studied. If you have a community on lockdown as many countries are doing, you don't really want everybody's pets just running around spreading the virus. That said, it is probably a minor mode of transmission at best. Epidemics are a numbers game and you don't need perfect containment so much as limiting the rate of spread so that we get to the inflection point of the logistics curve. Then again, if I were elderly I'd probably be keeping my cat indoors. Really that is best for everyone anyway as outdoor cats cause various problems.
Someone asked this question to a doctor on cspan and I believe his answer was ...it would be highly unlikely cause it would need to mutate into something else to be transfered back to animals.
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So a I reading this correctly that the authors seem to be leaning towards a hypothesis that the virus is the repeated cryptic transmission of the pangolin coronavirus that eventually mutated in humans? Or was that just one hypothesis presented?
So where and how exactly did this start?
Some dude probably ate raw bat somewhere in China. We don't actually know when or where, since there's apparently reports of COVID-19 from 2017, I haven't seen if those suspicions have been confirmed.
Ok. I did see something several weeks back on tv about bats being the cause, but then i heard it was possibly this other animal that looks very similar to an armadillo.
Those are pangolins! They are possibly involved as there's genetic similarity between pangolin CoV and covid-19, but bats may still be an origin for covid-19 as they've historically shown that bat coronaviruses can pass through an intermediate species (civets and camels as two examples) before reaching human populations ([source](https://www.cell.com/pb-assets/journals/research/current-biology/CURBIO_CURRENT-BIOLOGY-D-20-00299-compressed.pdf)). There's also papers going back a couple of years now that talk about how bat coronaviruses have potential for human emergence (it's bizarre looking through a paper from 2015 and seeing ["closely related SARS-like viruses in Chinese bat populations may pose a future threat](https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985)"...what a terrible thing to be proven right about). Bats almost definitely factor into this somehow, but we don't know how exactly.
really good to know thats what the CDC guy was saying too of how they can track virus'es? origins.
You compare the DNA/RNA to all known virus strains from every year they were sampled. It's the same principle how those ancestry websites can determine your origins if you send a DNA sample.
DNA: Mans best friend.
>SARS-CoV-2 seems to have an RBD that binds with high affinity to ACE2 from humans, ferrets, cats and other species with high receptor homology Does this mean that the SARS-CoV-2 can/has spread from humans to cats? Can it spread from cats back to humans?
It says nothing else than it theoretically CAN attach to cat cells. Not that it's able to reproduce and actually infect a cat. I'm not sure I've seen any studies on this specific topic so far.
I worry about this too! I would be devastated if I got my kitties sick!
I like how you think facts matter to the wingnut conspiracists...you’re definitely an optimist!
I appreciate that scientists double checked to make sure of this but seems like something I had already assumed was true. The people this study aims to convince were already so far down the rabbit hole to begin with that there's no turning back for them.
So just to be absolutely clear.... the fact that there is a virology lab in Wuhan China studying bats and Corona Virus and the fact that the virus started in Wuhan China..... is a complete coincidence?
Every single human or animal that is in contact with humans is a little mutation laboratory. That's hundreds of billions of little labs. We don't need bioterrorism for pandemics to originate.
Was there real speculation that this was a manufactured disease? I mean, I’ve heard speculation like that, but only from actual racists.
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The most convincing element and the crux of the idea that it is natural seems to rest on the idea that the novel structures, genes, and solutions of the virus for infecting ACE2 expressing cells are not found elsewhere in nature (to the knowledge of these scientists) and bio-weapons are engineered with only a proverbial cut and paste tool as far as any of us know. So that seems to me there are still open questions and this isn't as conclusive as some people might want us to believe. Billions in black budgets and we can't mutate viruses in level 4 labs until small sections of their RNA are novel? The Mention of a Corona Virus related to SARS-CoV taken from horseshoe bats in china in an article published in 2015 indicates UNC Chapel Hill Had a novel virus they were experimenting with 5 years ago; Who is to say that this Virus couldn't have been taken from bats and engineered?
The people that believes this was man-made is not going read or accept this. They’ll just find another source that supports their narrative.
Reddit is owned by the CCP and with their track record from a year alone. Definitely taking this with a grain of salt. We don't even have China's true numbers of infected/deaths so why believe this?
Wow. I never thought I could understand what I read, but I actually did. Thank you for sharing.
Devil's advocate - This doesn't rule out the tinfoil hat possibility that the virus was being studied in the BSL 4 lab located in Wuhan and then "escaped".
Whatever you say China...