Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it is a new variant.
Proteins like reverse-transcriptase are quite complex, it’s not a mutation that would appear so suddenly. Also, having such a protein would significantly change how the virus operates, and it would be visible upon sequencing it.
So, logically, COVID-19 viral components likely have coexisted inside our bodies with some quantity of reverse transcriptase, no?
I do know that we find viral DNA in human DNA, likely as a result of past retroviral activity. I wonder if we ever find sequences from non-retroviruses that have hitched a ride so to speak.