COVID theories - part 1

April 2022

Part I - The source of Covid-19: was it animals or scientists?

Ever since the first reports of a coronavirus outbreak in December 2019 in the Chinese megacity of Wuhan, the origins of Covid-19 have been steeped in controversy. Did the virus just pop out of nature by chance? Or, was it a human creation now running amok? The answer is vital to ensure controls are put in place to reduce the risk of this sad, global history repeating itself.Historically, a number of human and animal coronavirus epidemics have been traced to bats as the likely reservoir or ancestral host. Humans don't have much direct contact with bats, but it seems the offending viruses jumped into other animals, such as camels, to which we're much closer. before jumping into us.

Using samples from early severe cases of Covid-19, before the virus had had much time to mutate, Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) took only six weeks to examine the structure of the new virus and report that Covid-19 was, indeed, very likely to be caused by a bat virus, but that it had a "highly divergent" spike protein. The spike protein is a molecular 'grappling iron' used by the virus to latch onto cells and enable infection: it is the characteristics of the spike protein that dictate which cells the virus is able to attack. In the current coronavirus outbreak, the spike protein was identified as exhibiting a strong similarity to a coronavirus which had been found in pangolins.

Pangolins are scaly mammals native to Asia. All eight species of pangolin are designated 'under threat' and protected by national and international laws. The trading of pangolins is illegal. However, because their meat is considered a delicacy in China and their scales are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, they are one of the most trafficked mammals taken from the wild for sale on the black market.

In this scenario, there were two 'hot' leads on the possible source of the Covid-19 virus.

The first obvious lead was the pangolin link. Most of the early cases of Covid-19 (in December 2019 and January 2020) had a contact history with a Wuhan fresh food market where a variety of animals, including wild ones, are also sold for human consumption. This market would be a likely conduit for the illegal sale of pangolins. Environmental sampling in the Wuhan market reported a high viral load.

The second obvious lead was the Wuhan Institute of Virology itself which has a Laboratory of Special Pathogens. Emerging diseases and bat viruses in particular are one of its specialties. The Institute has maximum-containment facilities and the scientific expertise for researching high-risk pathogens. However, no matter how rigorous and secure the procedures in place for handling viruses, accidental escapes of viruses from research labs happen.

At the outset, the investigation of the source of the Covid-19 pandemic looked straightforward: survey likely wild animal populations for the presence of the virus, and check WIV laboratory records of the collected natural viruses handled there and the variant viruses created in the course of its gain-of-function experiments.

Gain-of-function experiments are carried out in laboratories to second-guess what unpleasant surprises might be in store for us when pathogenic viruses evolve (naturally). The excuse for these is to enable faster development of protective vaccines and treatments.

Such procedures include deliberately driving evolutionary changes in the virus by repeatedly infecting human cells with it, or by using gene technology to directly intervene in the genome of a suitable virus to enhance its virulence, its transmissibility or its host range, or by simply generating a large number of randomly-mutated versions to see what nasties can arise.

It's been pointed out that, in fact, the pathogens generated by (highly artificial) gain-of-function procedures are unique: they would never evolve to such extremes naturally, "and hence would never be a problem in the first place" (Dalgleish).

Gain-of-function experiments are illegal in Europe where they are considered too risky.

The American National Institute of Health (NIH), however, has been funding such experiments in the WIV for some years through EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based not-for-profits organisation researching emerging infectious diseases.

What actually happened was far from straightforward: the investigation was pushed and pulled every-which-way by multiple political motives, a pro-GM and self-serving scientific agenda, threats, and a wealth of conspiracies.