"Coronavirus Evolved Naturally, and Is Not a Laboratory Construct"
As coronavirus spreads, so does anti-asian racism and conspiracy theories. With the results of the scientific study performed by researchers at the Scripps Research Institute, we can hopefully get rid of these unpleasant side effects of the coronavirus.
Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes & Robert F. Garry are all convinced that the virus is not the result of bioengineering in a Chinese lab. This due to the following two findings:
1)The RBD (the receptor-binding domain) portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins had evolved to effectively target the host cell ACE2 receptor, which is involved in regulating blood pressure, with high affinity. The RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution that is different from those previously predicted. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise.
2) The second main finding is related to the backbone of the virus. If someone was seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness. But the scientists found that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins. The genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.
So what is the origin of COVID19?
The coronavirus outbreak likely started in a Wuhan wet market. Out of the 41 first patients, 27 of them have been there. Most scientists share the idea that COVID19 is transmitted from animals to humans. Bats and pangolins carry viruses that show strong similarities with the COVID19 as we know it nowadays. The virus could be directly transmitted to a human or through an intermediary host, such as civets or ferrets. All those hosts need to encounter each other somewhere and this has likely happened in the Huanan market. According to Peter Li , associate professor at University of Houston-Downtown, it was not a surprise that this is the origin of the outbreak, because cages are stacked one over another. Animals at the bottom are soaked with liquids of the animals at the top. This is exactly how the virus can jump from one animal to another animal. When this animal comes into contact with a human, the person is infected and can spread it to other humans.
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