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Origins of SARS-CoV-2

The origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus are hotly debated, but crucially important for understanding the totality of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meta-Commentary on Origins Theories and Controversies

  • September 14, 2020 - In an interview published by HuffPost, Baric stated unequivocally that genetic engineering of a virus can occur with or without leaving a trace, including a potential personal signature.1)
  • February 16, 2021, “Why China and the WHO Will Never Find a Zoonotic Origin For the COVID-19 Pandemic Virus” by Jonathan Latham, PhD and Allison Wilson, PhD.2)
  • May 2, 2021 (Nicholas Wade) Commentary on theories
  • Aug 17, 2021 (thebulletin) How C19’s origins were obscured, by East and West.
  • Feb 22, 2022 Dr. Robert Malone discusses the Wuhan lab leak theory with EcoHealth Alliance whistleblower Andrew Huff.3)

Engineering Consensus of a Narrative

  • May 23, 2021 (judithcurry) Collapse of the fake consensus on C19 origins
  • Kristian Anderson's deleted tweets (source). (archived)
  • June 6, 2021 (Alex Berenson) Anderson told Fauci SC2 looked engineered, then later that day publicly said the opposite!
  • Aug 11, 2021 (usrtk) Scientist who authored article denying lab engineering privately acknowledged possible lab origin.
    • Shan-Lu Liu (Ohio State)
  • February 10, 2022 - WIV Virologist Shi Zhengli employs a “personal propagandist” to handle public relations.4)

Evidence Tampering

The Missing Coronavirus Genetic Database

On the 12th Sep 2019, the main database administered by Shi Zhengli of samples and viral sequences at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) went offline. At some point, each of the other 15 virus databases managed by the WIV was taken offline.5)

Rearrangement of Wuhan Data
  • Mar 5, 2022 - Charles Rixey contests data from Worobey paper studying Wuhan outbreak.6)

Investigations in the Origins of SARS-CoV-2

This section may also include, or even be dominated by “investigations” that were meant to deceive rather than reveal information.

WHO Investigation

Peter Daszak admitted that he and the investigatory team did not even ask for the missing bat virus database from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.7)

Withheld Information

  • The NIH continues to withhold critical documents that could shed light on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.8)

Evidence of Earlier Spread

Wastewater Reports

Sewage samples from Barcelona, Spain from May, 2019.9)

Origins Hypotheses

Note that some of these hypotheses are not mutually exclusive.

Genetic Engineering Hypotheses

From essentially the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some scientists have pointed to evidence that SARS-CoV-2 came about through gain-of-function research. One of the first published papers on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 pointed out reasons to suspect the use of serial passage through an animal host or cell culture was likely.10)

Biological Attack Hypothesis

A long and detailed article published in State of the Nation lays out a case that COVID-19 was the result of a biological attack on China by the U.S.11)

Earlier Circulation Hypothesis

  • December 20, 2021 - Evidence for a Potential Pre-Pandemic SARS-like Coronavirus Among Animals in North America12)

Zoonotic Origins Hypothesis

Since the start of the pandemic, authorities have primarily promoted a theory of zoonotic transfer from an animal host to humans.

Bat Coronaviruses

SARS-CoV-2 is most highly similar to coronaviruses that have been found in bats.

The RaTG13 betacoronavirus is the most highly similar coronavirus to SARS-CoV-2, sharing 98.7% identical mitochondrial rRNA, but was supposedly generated from a bat fecal swab, which strikes some scientists as unlikely since metagenomic analysis shows a small 10.3% bacterial rRNA in the dataset.13)

More recently, close coronavirus relatives to SARS-CoV-2 have been found in bats in Laos.14) Some scientists claim this bolsters to the zoonotic origins theory while giving no answers to the numerous critiques of that theory.15)

Conflicts of Interest

Since the start of the SARS-CoV-2 origins debate, a great deal of information has surfaced regarding what at least stand out as conflicts of interest, if not outright corruption, among those defending theories of natural origins. At least $50 million in NIAID funding went to scientists instrumental in defending the natural origins hypothesis.16)

  • July 25, 2020 - Poudel et al: Animal coronaviruses and coronavirus disease 2019: Lesson for One Health approach.17)

Hoax Hypotheses

Questions About Purification & Sequencing

Numerous FOIA replies from the CDC, apparently showing that no virus, ever, has been successfully purified and sequenced, including SARS-Covid-2.18)

Meanwhile Heiko, an independent researcher, asked the science teams of the relevant papers which are referred to in the context of SARS-CoV-2 for proof whether the electron-microscopic shots depicted in their in vitro experiments show purified viruses. Not a single team could answer that question with “yes” — and note, nobody said purification was not a necessary step. We only got answers like “No, we did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification” (see below).Citation Needed

We asked several study authors “Do your electron micrographs show the purified virus?”, they gave the following responses:

Study 1: Leo L. M. Poon; Malik Peiris. “Emergence of a novel human coronavirus threatening human health” Nature Medicine, March 202019) Replying Author: Malik Peiris Date: May 12, 2020

Answer: “The image is the virus budding from an infected cell. It is not purified virus.”

Study 2: Myung-Guk Han et al. “Identification of Coronavirus Isolated from a Patient in Korea with COVID-19”, Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives, February 202020) Replying Author: Myung-Guk Han Date: May 6, 2020

Answer: “We could not estimate the degree of purification because we do not purify and concentrate the virus cultured in cells.”

Study 3: Wan Beom Park et al. “Virus Isolation from the First Patient with SARS-CoV-2 in Korea”, Journal of Korean Medical Science, February 24, 202021) Replying Author: Wan Beom Park Date: March 19, 2020

Answer: “We did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification.”

Study 4: Na Zhu et al., “A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China”, 2019, New England Journal of Medicine, February 20, 202022) Replying Author: Wenjie Tan Date: March 18, 2020

Answer: “[We show] an image of sedimented virus particles, not purified ones.”

Regarding the mentioned papers it is clear that what is shown in the electron micrographs (EMs) is the end result of the experiment, meaning there is no other result that they could have made EMs from. That is to say, if the authors of these studies concede that their published EMs do not show purified particles, then they definitely do not possess purified particles claimed to be viral.

A December 28, 2021 Substack article by Arkmedic, “How to BLAST23) your way to the truth about the origins of COVID-19” has, as the subtitle, “Using BLAST is easy. I'm going to show you how easy and how to prove that SARS-Cov-2 is man-made”.24) This might be assisted by the NCBI SARS-CoV-2 Resources page.25)

Fish Sticks Hypothesis

Not China Hypothesis

The coronavirus may not have originated in China, says Oxford professor.26)

5)
February, 2021 | Billy Bostickson et al | preprint | An investigation into the WIV databases that were taken offline | DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.28029.08160
6)
March 5, 2022 | Charles Rixey | Tweet
7)
March 11, 2021 | Small Dead Animals | One Flu Out Of The Wuhan Nest
9)
June 13, 2020 | Gemma Chavarria-Miro et al | preprint | Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater anticipates the occurrence of COVID-19 cases | doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627
10)
August 12, 2020 | Sirotkin and Sirotkin | BioEssays | doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000091
12)
December 20, 2021 | Trevor Hancock et al | Evidence for a Potential Pre-Pandemic SARS-like Coronavirus Among Animals in North America | doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.17.473265
13)
November 22, 2021 | Steven E Massey | preprint | arXiv:2111.09469
14)
September 17, 2021 | Temmam et al | preprint | DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-871965/v1
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