The Corona Virus Lab Origin Papers

The Covid-19 / SARS-CoV-2 Papers

Although the predominant scientific evidence concludes the virus has a natural origin due to transfer from bats, through a second species to humans, papers emerging in 2021 cite evidence consistent with a lab accident in Wuhan. This is an ongoing debate with more claims to emerge.

Origins of Covid-19


Left: Two troubling features of Sars-Cov-2. Top unusual inserts of basic amino acids inconsistent with corresponding bat corona viruses (2). Lower: Sars-Cov-2 still has no clear zoonotic origin, while the evolutionary descent of both Sars-Cov epidemics is clear. Lower right: Sars-Cov-2 appears pre-adapted to humans while Sars-Cov showed clear evolutionary adaption (4). Right top left : Nucleotide and amino acid divergences between Cov-2 and rat and pangolin covs). Lower: Amino acid comparisons on key parts of the spike protein. Top right: Key unique binding motifs of each..

The Genetic Evidence

While Sars-Cov-2 has 96% homology with the closest bat corona virus, the spike protein contains high homology with a pangolin corona virus spike protein. The broad scientific consensus remains that the virus emerged naturally (6, 7) due to zoonotic transfer from bats to humans via a second species, possibly a pangolin or civet, but two lines of genetic evidence below disagree with this. In May a paper (5) noted the highly evolved adaption to humans from the outset (see also 4). In June, a second paper (2) claiming inserts consistent with engineering are key components of the spike protein infectivity supported also by detailed structure and claimed unusual inserts (from 3, 8, 9), accompanied by media claims from an ex-head of UK MI6 (1) suggesting the virus was an (accidental) lab release. This claim needs careful comparison with the claim that the spike protein in a Malaysian pangolin is virtually identical to Sars-Cov-2 (10), thus resulting from recombination with a bat corona virus in the pangolin. A now somewhat notorious experiment in 2015 (11, 12) co-authored by "Bat Woman" Shi Zhengli-Li Deputy Director of the Wuhan lab, as well as a US team, engineered a mouse-adapted Sars virus with bat spike proteins. Shi has sworn on her life that Cov-2 is not homologous to any of the viruses in her lab and the critical work seems to have all been done in the US.

  1. Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route Zenodo 14-9-2020
  2. The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review Zenodo 7-7-2021
  3. Norwegian virologist claims coronavirus is 'chimera' made in Chinese lab Taiwan News 10-6-2020
  4. Virus began as 'accident' in Chinese lab, ex MI6 boss says NZ Herald 7-6-2020
  5. Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research Medium 23-4-2020 This is a very detailed analysis of the lab claims and gain of function corona virus research where new spike proteins are added and furing cleavage sites have been inserted. These have invlolved both Chinese and US researchers in very dubious attempts to create enhanced infectivity vectors, ostensibly to research corona virus threats. It also includes a discussion of how such enhanced vectors could give rise to the serious organ failures seen in seriously ill covid-19 patients. PDF mirror
  6. A Candidate Vaccine for Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Developed from Analysis of its General Method of Action for Infectivity QRB Discovery 28-5-2020 We show the non-receptor dependent phagocytic general method of action to be specifically related to cumulative charge from inserted sections placed on the SARS-CoV-2 Spike surface in positions to bind efficiently by salt bridge formations.
  7. In silico comparison of spike protein-ACE2 binding affinities across species; significance for the possible origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus arXiv 13-5-2020 Overall, the data indicates that SARSCoV2 is uniquely adapted to infect humans, raising questions as to whether it arose in nature by a rare chance event or whether its origins lie elsewhere.
  8. Structure, Function, and Antigenicity of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein Cell 16-4-2020
  9. Virus didn't come from animals in Wuhan market NZ Herald 17-5-2020
  10. SARS-CoV-2 is well adapted for humans. What does this mean for re-emergence? bioRxiv 2-5-2020 Our observations suggest that by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV. However, no precursors or branches of evolution stemming from a less human-adapted SARS-CoV-2-like virus have been detected.
  11. No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2 Emerging Microbes & Infections 2-3-2020
  12. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 Nature Medicine 13-3-2020 Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.
  13. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin Nature 3-2-2020 Here we report the identification and characterization of a new coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which caused an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome in humans in Wuhan, China. The sequences are almost identical and share 79.6% sequence identity to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, we show that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus.
  14. The spike glycoprotein of the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV contains a furin-like cleavage site absent in CoV of the same clade Antivir. Res. 8-2-2020 Despite a high similarity with the genome sequence of SARS-CoV and SARS-like CoVs, we identified a peculiar furin-like cleavage site in the Spike protein of the 2019-nCoV, lacking in the other SARS-like CoVs.
  15. Isolation of SARS-CoV-2-related coronavirus from Malayan pangolins Nature 7-5-2020 In this study, one coronavirus isolated from a Malayan pangolin showed 100%, 98.6%, 97.8% and 90.7% amino acid identity with SARS-CoV-2 in the E, M, N and S genes, respectively. In particular, the receptor-binding domain within the S protein of the Pangolin-CoV is virtually identical to that of SARS-CoV-2, with one noncritical amino acid diference. Results of comparative genomic analysis suggest that SARS-CoV-2 might have originated from the recombination of a Pangolin-CoV-like virus with a Bat-CoV-RaTG13-like virus. The Pangolin-CoV was detected in 17 of 25 Malayan pangolins analyzed.
  16. Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research Nature Discusses the claim SARS-CoV-2 was engineered.
  17. A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence Nature Medicine 2015 In 2015, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted research showing the virus could be made to infect the human HeLa cell line, through the use of reverse genetics to create a chimeric virus consisting of a surface protein of SHC014 and the backbone of a SARS virus. However, it has been shown to differ in over 5,000 nucleotides from SARS-CoV-2, the cause of a human pandemic in 2019-2020
  18. Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding to human, pet, farm animals, and putative intermediate hosts ACE2 and ACE2 receptors bioRxiv 8-5-2020
  19. Analysis of hospital traffic and search engine data in Wuhan China indicates early disease activity in the Fall of 2019 Harvard Dash 6-2020 We observe an upward trend in hospital traffic and search volume beginning in late Summer and early Fall 2019. While queries of the respiratory symptom "cough" show seasonal fluctuations coinciding with yearly influenza seasons, "diarrhea" is a more COVID-19 specific symptom and only shows an association with the current epidemic. The increase of both signals precede the documented start of the COVID-19 pandemic in December.
  20. Are pangolins the intermediate host of the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)? Plos Pathogens 14-5-2020.
  21. US military chief: 'Weight of evidence' that Covid-19 did not originate in a lab Guardian 14-4-2020
  22. US intelligence debunks theory it was 'manmade' BBC 30-4-2020
  23. Trump contradicts US intel community by claiming he's seen evidence coronavirus originated in Chinese lab CNN 1-5-2020
  24. Chinese lab conducted extensive research on deadly bat viruses, but there is no evidence of accidental release Wash Post 1-5-2020
  25. Cause of Wuhan's Mysterious Pneumonia Cases Still Unknown, Chinese Officials Say Scientific American 6-1-2020


Inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan in 2017 - China's only biosafety level 4 super laboratory.

The Chinese Lab Theory

  1. Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens Nature 22-2-2017 Maximum-security biolab is part of plan to build network of BSL-4 facilities across China
  2. Following the Politics, Not the Science City Journal 27-5-2021 Scientists and journalists should reckon with their early dismissals of the lab-leak hypothesis
  3. China built a lab to study SARS and Ebola in Wuhan - and US biosafety experts warned in 2017 that a virus could 'escape' the facility that's become key in fighting the outbreak Daily Mail 24-1-2020
  4. COVID-19 'has NO credible natural ancestor' and WAS created by Chinese scientists who then tried to cover their tracks with 'retro-engineering' to make it seem like it naturally arose from bats, explosive new study claims Daily Mail 28-5-2021
  5. Unexamined Intelligence to Pore Over on Virus Origins NYT 28-5-2021 Intelligence officials have told the White House that computer analysis may shed light on the mystery.
  6. Biden tasks intelligence community to report on Covid origins in 90 days CNN 26-5-2021
  7. US joins calls for transparent, science-based investigation into Covid origins Guardian 26-5-2021 Several countries tell the WHO annual meeting that a new inquiry with new terms of reference must be launched
  8. Why scientists are suddenly more interested in the lab-leak theory of Covid's origin CNN 26-5-2021
    Chinese state media is turning on Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy
  9. New information on Wuhan researchers' illness furthers debate on pandemic origins CNN 24-5-2021 A US intelligence report found that several researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized China rejects report of sick staff at Wuhan lab prior to Covid outbreak Guardan 24-5-2021
  10. Investigate the origins of COVID-19 Science 14-5-2021 As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general, the United States and 13 other countries, and the European Union that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.
  11. How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Lab-Leak Theory Medium 17-5-2021
  12. The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora's box at Wuhan? Bul. At. Sci. 5-5-2021
  13. White House says Americans deserve 'better information' as allies criticize WHO coronavirus report CNN 31-3-2021
  14. UK and US criticise WHO's Covid report and accuse China of withholding data Guardian 30-3-2021
  15. Timing the SARS-CoV-2 index case in Hubei province Science 18-3-2021 Researchers working to show when and how the virus first emerged in China calculate that it probably did not infect the first human being until October 2019 at the very earliest. And their models showed it almost didn't make it as a pandemic virus. Only bad luck and the packed conditions of the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan -- the place the pandemic appears to have begun -- gave the virus the edge it needed to explode around the globe. The team employed molecular dating, using the rate of ongoing mutations to calculate how long the virus has been around. They also ran computer models to show when and how it could have spread, and how it did spread. To answer this question, they combined three important pieces of information: a detailed understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 spread in Wuhan before the lockdown, the genetic diversity of the virus in China and reports of the earliest cases of COVID-19 in China. By combining these disparate lines of evidence, they were able to put an upper limit of mid-October 2019 for when SARS-CoV-2 started circulating in Hubei province. The evidence strongly indicates the virus could not have been circulating before that.
  16. WHO Investigators to Scrap Plans for Interim Report on Probe of Covid-19 Origins WSJ 4-3 2021 U.S-China tensions rise over investigation as group of scientists presses for fresh inquiry, including into lab escape theory. Call for a Full and Unrestricted International Forensic Investigation into the Origins of COVID-19 4-3-2021
  17. Former top State Dept investigator says COVID-19 outbreak may have resulted from bioweapons research accident Fox 12-3-2021
  18. Boris Johnson's government has considered the possibility that the coronavirus may have accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab Business Insider 6-4-2020
  19. Inside the Viral Spread of a Coronavirus Origin Theory Vanity Fair 10-4-2020 A Wuhan biosafety laboratory, bat blood, a wet market, scientists, pangolins, politicians looking for someone to blame: the perfect ingredients for a story that won't go away.
  20. Lessons We Didn't Learn National Review 14-4-2020 In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China's first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). They sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats.
  21. How China muzzled its Bat Woman: Beijing authorities hushed up the findings of Shi Zhengli who unlocked the genetic make-up of the coronavirus within days of the outbreak - which is vital for tests and vaccines. Daily Mail 12-4-2020 The virologist was called back as deputy director to her high security laboratory in Wuhan at the end of last year after a mysterious new respiratory condition in the city was identified as a novel coronavirus – and within three days she completed its gene sequencing. Shi told the respected science journal Scientific American last month of her relief when, having checked back through disposal records, none of the genome sequences matched their virus samples.
  22. Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research, amid US-China row on virus origin CNN 13-4-2020
  23. Director of Wuhan Institute of Virology says 'let science speak' CGTN 23-5-2020 We have three strains of live viruses. One of them has the highest similarity, 96 percent to the SARS virus. But their highest similarity to SARS-CoV-2 only reaches 79.8 percent. The bat coronavirus which has a 96.2 percent genomic similarity to SARS-CoV-2 is called RaTG-13. But coronavirus have the largest genomes with 30000 bases. It would take about 50 years for RaTG-13 to naturally evolve to SARS-CoV-2, given 1100 base differences. Many people might misunderstand that since our institute reported the RaTG-13's genomic similarity to SARS-CoV-2, we must have the RaTG-13 virus in our lab. In fact, that's not the case. When we were sequencing the genes of this bat virus sample, we got the genome sequence of the RaTG-13 but we didn't isolate nor obtain the live virus of RaTG-13. Thus, there is no possibility of us leaking RaTG-13.
  24. Chinese scientist claims Covid-19 started in 'military lab' after fleeing to US Stuff/Fox 11-7-2020

The Fort Detrick Saga

  1. As the WHO investigated coronavirus origins in China, Beijing pushed a conspiracy about the US CNN 18-2-2021
  2. The Hunt for Patient Zero: Another American Index Case? UNZ 10-4-2020
  3. Cause of Respiratory Illness Still Unknown After Dozens Sickened at Virginia Retirement Community 18-7-2019
  4. More Sickened By Outbreak At Springfield Retirement Home 16-7-2019
  5. Deadly Germ Research Is Shut Down at Army Lab Over Safety Concerns 5-8-2019 The two breaches reported by USAMRIID to the CDC demonstrated a failure of the Army laboratory to "implement and maintain containment procedures sufficient to contain select agents or toxins" that were made by operations in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories, according to the report. Biosafety level 3 and 4 are the highest levels of containment, requiring special protective equipment, air flow and standard operating procedures.
  6. Exclusive: U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak Reuters 23-3-2020 The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China's disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue.
  7. Military World Games 1-11-2019 Top U.S. military athletes are in Wuhan, China, participating in the 2019 Military World Games, which promote peace by uniting service members from nations around the globe through sports.
  8. CDC Inspection Findings Reveal More about Fort Detrick Research Suspension NYT 24-11-2019 The suspended research involves certain toxins, along with germs called select agents, which the government has determined have "the potential to pose a severe threat to public, animal or plant health or to animal or plant products." There are 67 select agents and toxins; examples include the organisms that cause Ebola, smallpox, anthrax and plague, and the poison ricin.
  9. Select Agents and Toxins List CDC Includes Item 19: SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). For determining the regulatory status of nucleic acids that are capable of producing infectious forms of select agent viruses, please reference  guidance at https://www.selectagents.gov/na-guidance.html.
  10. China Spins Tale That the U.S. Army Started the Coronavirus Epidemic NYT 13-3-2020
  11. She's been falsely accused of starting the coronavirus. Her life has been turned upside down CNN 27-4-2020 The baseless theory began with her participation in October in the Military World Games, essentially the military Olympics, which was hosted by Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus outbreak began last year.

History

  1. The Secret History of Fort Detrick, the CIA's Base for Mind Control Experiments 15-9-2019
  2. U.S. Army suspends germ research at Maryland lab 10-2-2009
  3. Why US outsourced bat virus research to Wuhan Asia Times 22-4-2020 US-funded $3.7 million project approved by Anthony Fauci in 2015 after US ban imposed on 'monster-germ' research.

China Disinformation Theory

Theory that Chinese propaganda encouraged lockdowns in Western countries NZ Herald 27-9-2020

5G Conspiraces and Covid

Thousands share fake quote claiming US and China created virus Reality Check and BBC Monitoring 13-5-2020 A fake quote attributed to a prominent French scientist has gone viral. The Facebook post claims Prof Didier Raoult said Covid-19 was created by the US and China to kill millions of Africans. An account in the Democratic Republic of Congo first posted the message, which has been shared more than 150,000 times in a number of African countries including Madagascar and Cameroon.

  1. Coronavirus conspiracies like that bogus 5G claim are racing across the internet TechCrunch 11-4-2020
  2. A Conspiracy Theory That 5G Is Causing The Coronavirus Is Spreading Alongside The Pandemic Buzzfeed 3-4-2020
  3. Here's where those 5G and coronavirus conspiracy theories came from FullFact 9-4-2020
  4. Revealed: 'former Vodafone executive' in 5G conspiracy video is UK pastor Guardian 24-4-2020 A recording spread around the world at the end of March, purportedly featuring a former Vodafone executive claiming to let the public in on a secret that the coronavirus pandemic is cover for a global plot to install 5G mobile phone masts, track the world's population through vaccines, and then destroy human society as we know it. In reality, the Guardian can reveal, the voice on the tape making the baseless claims is an evangelical pastor from Luton who recently tried to convince Zimbabweans to use cryptocurrency in their economy. In the recording he suggests that Bill Gates is involved in a plot to produce coronavirus vaccinations that will contain computer chips to track individuals, a move he claims will ultimately herald the destruction of society.
  5. Bill Gates 'microchip' conspiracy theory and other vaccine claims fact-checked BBC 29-5-2020