Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate (2015)

"Lab-made" still encompasses the whole of GoF research. That is, a virus can appear to have naturally evolved but have been evolved in lab under conditions by which it develops quicker, more efficiently, etc. If the virus was manufactured through some means then it was, by definition, lab-made. Even if it doesn't imply base-pair level manipulation by humans themselves.

It has been clear for ~1 year that not only did the NIH fund some GoF research it also funded research by a lab that was researching this exact virus. It is also clear that the Obama administration early on tried to kill this type research because it's glaringly obvious its extremely dangerous.

It is so unlikely such a novel, effective, and dangerous virus was created through bats sharing the same cave that it's not even worth considering. Similarly evolved viruses in nature rarely reach global pandemic levels. Even SARS v1 was weak in comparison. This all being said though, by the nature of GoF research, it would be impossible to tell anyway. At least as far as the MSM is concerned.

The only question now, I think, is malevolence. It's more likely a researcher was infected in the sub-par lab in Wuhan and brought it home than it is to be any of the cover stories given in the beginning: pangolin soup, BBQ bats, or what have you. I doubt the leak was malicious. I am certain the leak was from the lab. Finally, this isn't a new occurrence. This has happened several times here in the US and thankfully it was caught it time to stop it because we don't have a population density near what China has and the standard we hold our labs to makes carelessness with such research extremely hard to do.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21066966-defuse-prop...

So is it really that crazy to think they made a chimera of two "random isolates"? David Relman didn't think so:

> This argument fails to acknowledge the possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02) had already been discovered and were being studied in a laboratory—for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It would have been a logical next step to wonder about the properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in the laboratory.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246

Of course the opportunities for a lab accident aren't limited to genetic engineering. SARS-CoV-2 could be a naturally-evolved virus, but one that was sitting harmlessly in a remote cave until WIV researchers collected it. SARS-CoV-2 could also be naturally-evolved, and spread to some hapless villager who then made a day trip to Wuhan; but the point is that we don't know, and all options require investigation until we do.

> The Laos study offers insight into the origins of the pandemic, but there are still missing links, say researchers. For example, the Laos viruses don’t contain the so-called furin cleavage site on the spike protein that further aids the entry of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses into human cells.

From [1]. So yes, the claim made by the parent poster is patently false.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2

I just hope that if this is man made we have learned something to prevent this happening again.

How hard would it be for someone to do this on purpose?