Evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is genetically engineered
A scientist argues that the evidence for a “natural” origin for the virus is fabricated. Report: Claire Robinson
An anonymous scientist[1] has published a detailed article arguing that SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic, is a genetically engineered lab creation. What’s more, the author argues that the particular bat coronavirus from which SARS-CoV-2 is claimed to have naturally emerged – dubbed RaTG13 – is a fabrication. In other words, the author says the “natural origin” for the virus was made up in a desperate attempt to let those responsible for the lab escape off the hook.
According to the author, the fabrication was perpetrated by Shi Zhengli, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. The WIV is only a few kilometres from the Wuhan seafood and wildlife market that was initially blamed for the outbreak. Zhengli has been dubbed by the media “the bat woman” for her role in collecting bat viruses from the wild for her “gain-of-function” research.
“Gain-of-function” research seeks to make viruses more virulent or more transmissible – for instance, making a virus airborne or better adapted to different host species. Such research is not necessarily intended for bioweapons development – it’s supposedly intended to help develop vaccines and therapeutics for virus epidemics and for basic research on the behaviour of viruses. But it’s been fiercely criticized for decades by some scientists for posing huge risks to public health in return for little or no benefit.
In fact, the author of the new article does suggest that SARS-CoV-2 was developed as a bioweapon, though he doesn’t suggest that it was deliberately released as one.
The new article, titled, “RaTG13 – the undeniable evidence that the Wuhan coronavirus is man-made”, appears on the “Nerd has Power” blog. The blog site doesn’t identify the author, so we’ll call him or her “Nerd”, and assume he’s male, for the purposes of this article. The article is technical in parts but Nerd does his best to make it accessible to the layperson by explaining every step of his logic, at the same time as giving definitions of scientific terms. In our experience, he succeeds, though non-scientists may need to read the technical parts with close attention, possibly more than once!
The new article brings solid scientific evidence to the row that is raging over the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Some scientists have said that the virus is the result of natural evolution in animal or human hosts. But others have said that while natural emergence is possible, it’s also not possible to rule out a lab escape, either of a natural virus obtained from the wild for research, or even of a genetically engineered virus.
As Nerd points out, all publications arguing for a natural origin for SARS-CoV-2 rely on a single piece of evidence – the sequence of a purported natural bat coronavirus named RaTG13.
RaTG13 looks like a “close cousin” of SARS-CoV-2 – the two are 96% identical throughout the whole sequence of the viral genome. If RaTG13 is a natural virus, SARS-CoV-2 very likely also comes from nature and must share a recent common ancestor with RaTG13. Indeed, it has been argued by those in support of the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 that the virus arose by the mutation of RaTG13 in animal and/or human hosts.
But there’s one major problem with the natural origin theory, according to Nerd: The RaTG13 virus isn’t real. It doesn’t exist as a “live” sample, only as a sequence of letters in a computer, which only in January this year, after the COVID-19 outbreak hit, was uploaded into a public database. Nerd believes that this sole evidence of its existence, its genetic sequence, was fabricated. And, he says, the major suspect in the fabrication is Shi Zhengli.
We summarise below Nerd’s technical argument that SARS-CoV-2, as originally found in Wuhan, China, was genetically engineered. However, we strongly encourage readers to go to his full article, to look at the graphs that illustrate his argument, and to check out his linked sources.
Nerd’s argument is being taken seriously by many well qualified commentators, both on Twitter and in the Comments section of his original posting here. His updated post, which takes account of comments and corrections he’s received from readers, is here.
https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19396-evidence-that-the-sars-cov-2-virus-is-genetically-engineered