Might recent developments in Wuhan point to the origin of Covid-19 as possibly being the P4 biolab in Wuhan?

[Stephen Flynn]

Dr. Niman,  If you feel this is too of-topic feel free to remove.

Up till recently, I’ve poo-pooed the idea that the origin of Covid-19 might have come from Wuhan’s biolabs.  I thought you might look at this article and comment: 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/sudden-militarization-wuhans-p4-lab-raises-new-questions-about-origin-deadly-covid-19

Zerohedge is a strange website with a lot of strange stuff, but occasionally it does have some gems.

There have been many bio-lab accidents, near-accidents and intentional release of pathogens (anthrax in letters allegedly mailed by US Army researcher Bruce Ivins resulting in five deaths) around the world, historically, perhaps this is another accident. 

This article makes me wonder if the origin may have been an accidental release from the biolab in Wuhan.  I thought you might comment on the part that I found most interesting, though admittedly over my ability to judge:

“A genetic analysis of the spike-protein genes – the exact region that was bio-engineered by the UNC lab in 2015, where Zhengli Shi and Xing-Yi Ge previously isolated a batty coronavirus that targets the ACE2 receptor just like this 2019-nCoV strain of the coronavirus does – indicates an artificial and unnatural origins of the Wuhan Strain’s spike-protein genes when they are compared to the genomes of wild relatives.

Instead of appearing similar and homologous to its wild relatives, an important section of the Wuhan Strain’s spike-protein region shares the most genetic similarity with a bio-engineered commercially available gene sequence that’s designed to help with immunotherapy research. It is mathematically possible for this to happen in nature – but only in a ten-thousand bats chained to ten-thousand Petri dishes and given until infinity sense.

And so, as the report goes on, a scientist who’s been prolifically involved with studying the molecular interaction of coronaviruses and humanity, spending decades and millions of dollars, and having even helped build a hyper-virulent coronavirus from scratch at UNC – just so happens to be working at the only BSL-4 virology lab in China that also just so happens to be at the epicenter of an outbreak involved a coronavirus that’s escaping zoological classification and whose novel spike-protein region shares more in common with a commercial genetic vector than any of its wild relatives

[psk]

I agree, zerohedge does have some good stuff from time to time. This article being one of them. It raises a lot of questions.

[niman]

This is another nonsense report and we will be closing down threads on Bioweapons.

The conspiracies are discussed in many parallel universes that lack scientific fact.

 

The is nothing in the sequence indicating it was bio-engineered.  The sequence is related to cornviruses found in bats and is 99% identical to sequence in an ant eater. 

Evolution of sequences has polymorphisms common to bat isolates.