Australian researcher’s stunning Covid origin find
James Morrow - June 27, 2021
A team of Australian researchers have published a scientific paper proving that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus appears to be best adapted to attack human cells, raising even more questions about the pandemic’s origins.
The scientists from Flinders University and La Trobe used powerful computers to model the protein receptors in a number of animal species to see how the coronavirus’s spike protein attached itself to them.
The theory was that if the coronavirus attached itself readily to an animal like a bat or a pangolin, it would have likely been the species that the bug used to make its leap into the human population.
However, the modelling found that the coronavirus’s spike protein was best suited to attacking protein receptors in humans.
“The computer modelling found the virus’s ability to bind to the bat ACE2 protein was poor relative to its ability to bind human cells,” said Flinders University epidemiologist and vaccine researcher Professor Nikolai Petrovsky.
“This argues against the virus being transmitted directly from bats to humans.
“Hence, if the virus has a natural source, it could only have come to humans via an intermediary species which has yet to be found,” he said.
While the researchers also found that the coronavirus could attach relatively easily to pangolins, as well as domestic animals like cats and dogs, the findings will add weight to the increasingly repeated charge that the coronavirus escaped the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology in an accident involving “gain of function” research.
“Overall, putting aside the intriguing pangolin ACE2 results, our study showed that the COVID-19 virus was very well adapted to infect humans,” Prof Petrovsky said.
Studies such as this one are also being increasingly looked at in light of what appears to have been an orchestrated campaign to suppress any science that would implicate the Wuhan lab.
Early on in the pandemic, a number of scientists signed an open letter to one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, The Lancet, attacking what they called ‘conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin’.
The letter was used by media organisations as well as internet platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to justify censoring any discussion of the so-called “lab leak” theory as misinformation or fake news.
However it was later revealed that one of the letter’s chief organisers was British scientist Peter Daszak, who ran a New York-based health organisation that was responsible for funnelling millions of dollars to researchers in China, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to examine bat coronaviruses.
The paper, In silico comparison of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-ACE2 binding affinities across species and implications for virus origin, appears in the journal Scientific Reports.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/coronavirus/australian-researchers-stunning-covid-origin-find/news-story/f15deec77f1655701575dd9995038b91
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92388-5
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92388-5.pdf