The discovery of a new wild coronavirus that has the same strange mutation as Covid-19 is being hailed by some scientists as proof that Sars-CoV-2 was not created in a laboratory.
Researchers in China have found another bat coronavirus that possesses a furin cleavage site – the part that made Covid-19 so good at infecting humans.
The furin has been at the center of the debate over the origins of Covid-19, with some experts claiming it could only have been obtained through laboratory experiments.
Since then, studies have shown that wild coronaviruses can acquire the structure naturally — but the newly discovered virus has another serendipitous quirk.
The virus – known as TyRo-CoV-162275 – is up to 98 percent identical to the coronaviruses found in pangolins, the animal long suspected of transmitting Covid-19 to humans.
In the newly published study, which was actually conducted between 2016 and 2017, scientists collected samples from twenty different bat species in Yunnan and Guangdong provinces – 1,500 kilometers and 1,000 kilometers away from the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, Wuhan, respectively.
Critics of the so-called ‘lab leak theory’ held up the discovery as proof of concept that Covid-19-like viruses are emerging in the wild and passing between species.
Dr. Kristian Andersen, a leading Danish infectious disease expert, shared the new research on
Despite admitting that the lab leak was “highly likely” in messages obtained by DailyMail.com, Dr. Andersen’s theory publicly.
He was summoned before Congress in July, accused of misleading the public and covering up knowledge of bad practices at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a bat coronavirus laboratory just miles away from the first Covid-19 cases in China. tinkered with similar viruses in the years leading up to the pandemic.
While there is no direct evidence either way, there are two camps when it comes to how Covid-19 originated and spread.
Many scientists, the FBI and the Department of Energy believe the virus accidentally escaped from the WIV.
Others, including former White House physician Anthony Fauci, believe the virus originated in bats, was passed to an intermediate animal — possibly pangolins — and then spread to humans.
In the recently published study, which was actually conducted between 2016 and 2017, scientists from several zoology and science academies in China collected samples from twenty different bat species in Yunnan and Guangdong provinces – 1,500 kilometers and 1,000 kilometers away from the Covid-19 pandemic, respectively. epicenter of Wuhan.
The coronavirus strain found in pangolins – the animals first blamed for transmitting the coronavirus from bats to humans – was found to be nearly identical to the genetic makeup of the strain that infects humans, suggesting the animal is a mutated version has passed on to infect humans.
The scientists found that nine bat species carried 58 bat coronaviruses and were able to obtain the complete genomes of two of the viruses.
In a larger bamboo bat, the experts discovered TyRo-CoV-162275, a strain closely related to the group of bat MERS-like coronaviruses circulating in pangolins, the rare animal thought to be the intermediary that spread Covid from bats to humans transferred.
The second strain for which they were able to obtain a full-length genome was TyRo-CoV-162269, which they said was closely related to another type of bat coronavirus.
The article was published in the journal Virologica Sinica, which is led by Shi Zhengli – also known as the ‘Bat Lady’ or ‘Bat Woman’ for her work on bat coronaviruses at WIV.
Scientists not involved in the study who believe Covid likely originated naturally told DailyMail.com that the findings were “a new brick” that helps build the argument for a natural origin.
Dr. Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University in Britain, said: ‘There are a number of studies suggesting that Covid now has a natural origin, and most of us believed from the start that if we looked hard enough we would eventually find something that looks like a precursor to Covid.’
He added: ‘There is increasing evidence to support the spillover now. What’s important is that we learn as much as we can… to develop a pan-Covid vaccine.
‘But like many things this will remain controversial and we will never know the origins of Covid with 100 per cent certainty – but that’s the science anyway.’
Shi Zhengli – nicknamed the ‘Bat Lady’ or ‘Bat Woman’ for her work on bat coronaviruses – works at the Wuhan Institute of Virology
Pictured: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where crucial data was erased by Chinese scientists
But other scientists were not convinced and instead pointed out that the virus detected was not even closely related to SARS viruses, of which Covid is one.
“The (new) study provides no – zero – new information relevant to the origins of SARS-CoV-2,” Dr. Richard Ebright, a chemical biologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told DailyMail.com.
“The two viruses sequenced in the study are not SARS-related coronaviruses (and) are not among the many hundreds of known viruses called SARS-related (viruses).”
‘The viruses found in the bats were the merbecovirus and the nyctacovirus. These are not SARS-related coronaviruses such as Covid-19, but do belong to other groups of coronaviruses.’
Dr. Ebright added that while “hundreds” of Covid-like viruses may occur naturally, this study cannot explain why they are only hundreds of miles away from Wuhan, a bustling metropolis of more than 8 million people.
He believes that the precursor to Covid was shipped to Wuhan by WIV scientists and then experimented on.
He pointed out that in 2018 the WIV proposed implanting coronaviruses with furin cleavage sites.
Natural origin advocates generally believe that Covid jumped to humans via an intermediary animal sold at a now infamous wet market in Wuhan.
The new report comes amid the spread of a new mysterious pneumonia in Chinese schools.
Hospitals in Beijing and 800 kilometers northeast of Liaoning are among those “overwhelmed by sick children” and showing unusual symptoms, including inflammation in the lungs and high fever.
Scientists are now calling for transparency from China over the mystery disease – which bears eerie similarities to the early Covid outbreak.
