A blueprint for the laboratory construction of a highly infectious and deadly coronavirus has long existed. It was only a matter of time before a scientific group lacking moral constraints would attempt it, initiating a global catastrophe and paving the way for something even more dangerous in the future, unless action is taken now to prevent it.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party, supported by some Western scientists and a politically-motivated media have desperately tried to convince the world that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible, originated as a bat beta-coronavirus, which underwent a natural mutation process and was then acquired by humans after exposure to infected animals.
Yet, after more than nine months and hundreds of scientific studies, no one is near to identifying the naturally-occurring source of SARS-CoV-2.
Part of the difficulty resides in the fact that SARS-CoV-2 has unique structural features that appear to contribute to its high infectivity and pathogenicity for which there are no obvious evolutionary pathways.
Even in the earliest known cases, the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 seemed to have been already highly adapted to infect humans via the angiotensin converting enzyme-2 receptor found in lungs, kidneys, intestines and blood vessels.
Furthermore, SARS-CoV-2 contains a furin polybasic cleavage site with an amino acid sequence of proline-arginine-arginine-alanine or PRRA that facilitates membrane fusion between the virus and the human cell, a structure that is not found in any other related bat coronavirus.
In contrast, the bioengineering capabilities to “splice” the receptor binding domain from one virus to another and to artificially insert a furin polybasic cleavage site are both well-established laboratory techniques used globally for over ten years.
All the basic procedures required to synthesize a virus like SARS-CoV-2 were described in a single scientific publication entitled “Mechanisms of Zoonotic Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Host Range Expansion in Human Airway Epithelium,” which appeared in the Journal of Virology in March, 2008.
The construction of new viruses capable of infecting humans began by using, as a viral “backbone,” SARS-CoV-1, the coronavirus responsible for the 2002-2003 pandemic.
The spike protein of the SARS-CoV-1 backbone, which contains the receptor binding domain, was artificially replaced with the spike protein from another coronavirus.
The new spike protein underwent additional genetic manipulation by single amino acid substitution in a manner roughly equivalent to inserting a furin polybasic cleavage site.
Using a process called serial passaging, the new artificial virus was then exposed to human airway epithelial cell cultures (lung surface cells), where two new viruses were created, both of which were adapted for human infection and were capable of being neutralized with human monoclonal antibodies.
Needless to say, the genetic engineering and serial passaging techniques of today are far more advanced and far more widespread than they were twelve years ago.
It is entirely feasible that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a similar way.
Clearly, it is in the geopolitical interest of the Chinese Communist Party to deflect responsibility for the pandemic by promoting the narrative, both in the scientific literature and the mainstream media, that COVID-19 is just another naturally-occurring disease transmission from animals to humans.
That effort has been advanced by China’s refusal to fully disclose the information it possesses and conducting a politically-motivated scientific misinformation campaign.
Unfortunately, China’s actions seem to be buttressed by certain elements within the Western scientific community that may have interests in the outcome beyond an objective analysis of the data.
Given all the available information, the likelihood that the unique structural features of SARS-CoV-2 are the result of a natural evolutionary process is very small.
It is far more likely that China manufactured SARS-CoV-2 and, though a combination of hubris, incompetence and recklessness, unleashed it on the world.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel, who previously worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and conducted basic and clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry. He is a member of the Citizens Commission on National Security. His email address is lawrence.sellin@gmail.com.
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
