1) No animals have been found to be infected with SARS-CoV-2
Under the natural origin theory, the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, would have originated in an animal and traveled to humans either directly or through an intermediate host animal.
This natural spillover has precedent. For example, researchers traced the first Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 back to bat caves in China's Yunnan province, and the likely intermediary host animals were masked palm civets that tested positive for the virus.
The trouble with drawing the same conclusion for COVID-19 is that no one has identified an animal that has tested positive for the novel coronavirus that caused the global pandemic.
It's not for a lack of trying. Investigators tested more than 80,000 animals in China, including hundreds linked to the Huanan seafood market associated with the early cases of COVID-19, but "no positive result was identified for SARS-CoV-2," the World Health Organization (WHO) study on the origins of COVID-19 says.
"They tested an unprecedented 80,000 animals covering 209 species, including wild, domestic and market animals … and they found no infections in animals," Muller, the professor emeritus, told Fox News Digital.
"They found nothing. But instead of drawing a scientific conclusion from that, the World Health Organization came up with excuses."
The controversial World Health Organization (WHO) study on the origins of COVID-19 says the most likely scenario was a transmission from bats to an unknown host animal to humans, while the lab leak is "extremely unlikely." But even the WHO has backtracked and admitted it was too quick to rule out the lab theory and has revived its investigation.
2) No evidence of pre-epidemic infections
During past coronavirus epidemics, such as SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2013, there was evidence of extensive human infection from animals prior to the virus mutating to become transmissible between humans and sparking the pandemic, Muller said.
Investigators tested more than 9,000 human biological samples – including blood, plasma and throat swabs – that were stored at hospitals and blood banks prior to the pandemic, Muller said, citing data from the WHO report.
It was expected that between 100 and 400 would be positive for SARS-CoV-2, based on the natural outbreak experiences with SARS and MERS, Muller said. But in this case, zero tested positive.
"There is no evidence of multiple animal-to-human transmissions," said Dr. Steven Quay, a physician and founder of Atossa Therapeutics.
Muller and Quay have worked together on studying coronavirus origins and have presented their findings to Congress and in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
The lack of evidence of pre-pandemic infection and genetic purity of the virus suggests COVID-19 wasn't a natural spillover from animals, but a lab-acquired infection, the scientists say.
3) The genetic fingerprint of the virus is so unique it has never been observed in a natural coronavirus
Quay, who is writing a book on why COVID-19 originated from a lab, said SARS-CoV-2 has a unique trigger on its surface called a furin cleavage site and a unique code in its genes for that site, called a CGG-CGG dimer. This combination has never been found naturally and therefore points to a lab-manipulated virus, he says.
Since 1992, in gain-of-function research experiments, laboratories have inserted furin sites into viruses repeatedly, Quay said. The end result is supercharged, more infectious viruses, he said.
"These gene jockeys have put in a furin site into a virus that didn't have one in the laboratory," Quay told Fox News Digital. "Eleven out of 11 times it makes it more effective, more transmissible, more lethal -- all the bad things you'd want. So if you want to juice up a virus and make it more infective or make it go from bats to humans, putting in a furin cleavage site is a great idea."
and 7 points...
10 reasons why scientists believe coronavirus originated from lab in Wuhan, China | Fox News
The lab leakers tend to be more interested in biosecurity, transparency, and human hubris. They exhibit an admirable drive to follow the money, to upend centralized power, to overturn academic hierarchy, and to expose the injustices of oppressive governments. Some are China hawks. By and large, they have not done virus-hunting field or lab work.
On the natural-origin side, most people have done the kind of field and lab work that the W.I.V. pursued—and are regularly bowled over by nature's endless diversity. They believe in scientific precedent, as opposed to uncertainties that have yet to be resolved. Many people in this camp have devoted their careers to conservation, biodiversity, and public health, and have been warning about a future pandemic for years. Spillovers most often happen because of land-use change, or human encroachment into previously wild places, which is happening on pretty much the entire planet, but particularly in areas that are developing rapidly, like south China and southeast Asia.
More than one virologist reminded me that nature is the best bioterrorist. It's far more creative than humans are. With enough time, evolution is capable of anything we can imagine, and everything we can't. "If you look at a platypus, you can very clearly realiz
e that that's not something somebody would have designed, right?" Andersen said. "Because it's too absurd. It's a bit of a disaster. But it works pretty well." It occupies its own ecological niche. Some of the notable features of sars-CoV-2, Andersen said, make it "the platypus of coronaviruses."
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-case-of-the-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
