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Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 14-03-2020
Actually, I plan to mostly present serious and scientific information and articles....but to start a bit of levity in a time devoid of it...this cartoon on the 'myth of American Exceptionalism'
Super-rich jet off to disaster bunkers amid coronavirus outbreak
‘Self isolate’ for some of world’s richest means Covid-19 tests abroad, personal medics and subterranean hideouts
Coronavirus – live updates
Follow our latest coronavirus blog for live news and updates
How to protect yourself against coronavirus
Rupert Neate wealth correspondent
@RupertNeate
Wed 11 Mar 2020 19.50 GMT
Last modified on Fri 13 Mar 2020 01.00 GMT
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Closing the door: one of Vivos’ former army munitions bunkers, in South Dakota, US, repurposed for a ‘doomsday community’.
Closing the door: one of Vivos’ former army munitions bunkers, in South Dakota, US, repurposed for a ‘doomsday community’. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Like hundreds of thousands of people across the world, the super-rich are preparing to self-isolate in the face of an escalation in the coronavirus crisis. But their plans extend far beyond stocking up on hand sanitiser and TV boxsets.
The world’s richest people are chartering private jets to set off for holiday homes or specially prepared disaster bunkers in countries that, so far, appear to have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Many are understood to be taking personal doctors or nurses on their flights to treat them and their families in the event that they become infected. The wealthy are also besieging doctors in private clinics in Harley Street, London, and across the world, demanding private coronavirus tests.
To avoid overwhelming limited testing facilities, the NHS said it would test only people with a “high chance” of having the illness – meaning people who had had close contact with a confirmed case or who had recently gone to a high-risk country.
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Mark Ali, chief executive and medical director of the Private Harley Street Clinic, said: “This has led to huge demand from very wealthy people asking if they can pay for private testing. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer testing, as the NHS has said all tests should be done centrally.” The Department of Health and Social Care has mandated that all tests must be carried out by the NHS and Public Health England (PHE).
However, an employee at another Harley Street practice, who declined to be named, said their clinic had arranged for concerned clients to be tested in other countries, or for samples to be sent abroad for testing.
Ali, a cardiovascular surgeon, said his clients had pleaded for Covid-19 vaccination, even though scientists said it would be at least a year until a vaccine was developed. “[The Covid-19 outbreak] certainly fired up people’s reactions,” Ali said. “We have given a lot general flu vaccines and consultations to people wanting to talk in detail about their health and lifestyle.”
Ali said his clinic was also offering the worried wealthy an intravenous infusion of vitamins and minerals to boost their immune systems. “We know that 90% of adults have a deficiency in vitamins – what better to improve that than an IV immune boost? An intravenous infusion ensures instant and optimal delivery of these nutrients to the body’s cells and the nutrients should include vitamins such as vitamin C, vitamin B12 complex, glutathione, zinc and essential amino acids such as arginine, taurine, lysine and citrulline.” The treatment costs £350.
Ken Langone, co-founder of the Home Depot chain, knew where to turn when seeking medical advice on the outbreak. The 84-year-old billionaire called an executive and top scientist at NYU Langone Health, the New York hospital named after him and which he chairs. “What I’ve been told by people who are smarter than me in disease is, ‘As of right now it’s a bad flu’,” he told Bloomberg.
Adam Twidell, chief executive of the private jet booking service PrivateFly, said his firm was continuing to see a jump in bookings as wealthy people arranged evacuation flights home from high-risk countries.
He said: “Many are from groups which include elderly passengers or those with health conditions that make them particularly concerned about exposure to crowds on airline flights. We’ve just flown a group back to London from the south of France, with an immunocompromised passenger on board.”
Twidell said other rich clients were arranging flights out of the UK and other European countries in advance of the possible introduction of nationwide quarantine measures following Italy’s lead.
Quintessentially, the concierge company for millionaires, said members who could not quite afford private jets had requested access to private airport lounges to avoid the risk of interacting with large numbers of the travelling public.
“Members who are travelling commercially are choosing to book elite services at airports, not your typical first-class lounge,” a spokeswoman said. “For example, private terminals where guests are greeted and given their own suite. Check-in, customs and security are all done privately and guests are then taken to the doors of the aircraft. Members can request for the jetty to be cleared so they minimise the interactions with other passengers on their way to their seat.”
Quintessentially said one of its members had converted his home into a “military-style bunker” and was refusing any visitors unless they could provide detailed records of their movements and contacts.
Robert Vicino, founder and chief executive of Vivos Group, a California-based company constructing underground shelters designed to withstand a range of natural disasters and catastrophes, said his firm had seen a surge in inquiries and sales since the crisis took hold.
Vivos has converted a a cold war bunker in Indiana into accommodation for 80 people, and is offering space in 575 concrete bunkers in an abandoned second world war ordnance depot in South Dakota.
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 15-03-2020
Trump offers 'large sums' for exclusive access to coronavirus vaccine
German government tries to fight off aggressive takeover bid by US, say reports
Philip Oltermann in Berlin
@philipoltermann
Sun 15 Mar 2020 14.12 GMT
Last modified on Sun 15 Mar 2020 15.41 GMT
A researcher at the German biopharmaceutical company CureVac demonstrates work on a vaccine for the coronavirus at its laboratory in Tübingen.
The Trump administration has offered a German medical company “large sums of money” for exclusive access to a Covid-19 vaccine, German media have reported.
The German government is trying to fight off what it sees as an aggressive takeover bid by the US, the broadsheet Die Welt reports, citing German government circles.
The US president had offered the Tübingen-based biopharmaceutical company CureVac “large sums of money” to gain exclusive access to their work, wrote Die Welt.
According to an anonymous source quoted in the newspaper, Trump was doing everything to secure a vaccine against the coronavirus for the US, “but for the US only”.
The German government was reportedly offering its own financial incentives for the vaccine to stay in the country.
When approached about the report by the Guardian, the German health ministry would only confirm the accuracy of the quotes attributed to one of its spokespersons in the article.
“The federal government is very interested in vaccines and antiviral agents against the novel coronavirus being developed in Germany and Europe,” the spokesperson quoted in the original article had said. “In this regard the government is in an intensive exchange with the company CureVac.”
The German health ministry spokesperson declined the opportunity to correct any inaccuracies in Die Welt’s account.
With its headquarters in the south-western German city of Tübingen, CureVac also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston in the US. Linked with the German health ministry, it works closely with the Paul Ehrlich Institute, a research institution and medical regulatory body that is subordinate to the German health ministry.
On 11 March, CureVac released a statement that its CEO, the US citizen Daniel Menichella, was unexpectedly leaving the firm and would be replaced by the company’s founder, Ingmar Hoerr.
At the start of the month, Menichella was invited to the White House in Washington to discuss strategy for the rapid development and production of a coronavirus vaccine with Trump, the vice-president, Mike Pence, and members of the White House coronavirus task force.
The White House has been contacted for comment.
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 18-03-2020
March 17, 2020 | Celia Wexler
Will Civil Liberties Be Another COVID-19 Victim?
Italy, police, army, COVID-19
Italy has imposed unprecedented restrictions on its population to control the virus outbreak. Will the US resort to similar measures?
Chances are you don’t remember Kaci Hickox, but in 2014 she was a household name. Back then, when the world was gripped by fear of another aggressive virus — in this case the deadly Ebola disease — she was an American nurse who went to Sierra Leone to treat the sick. Her return to the US made headlines, caused her to clash with two governors, and eventually led to her vindication by the courts, a victory celebrated by civil libertarians. But Hickox’s story might have a far different ending today, as the country contends with not only the coronavirus pandemic but also a far more conservative judiciary.
When she returned to the US, Hickox did not have Ebola, a disease that is not airborne and is transferred only through contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids.
Nevertheless, two states imposed quarantines on her. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ® made her sleep in a tent for three days before letting her leave New Jersey, where her plane had landed, and return to her home in Maine. Hickox had some choice words for Christie, then considered a presidential prospect. “Politicians who tell lies,” she told the Guardian, “will hopefully never make it to the White House.”
However, once she returned to Maine, another governor, Paul LePage ®, ordered that she be quarantined in her home until the 21-day incubation period for the disease had ended.
Hickox sued, contending that there was no scientific basis for such drastic measures. Judge Charles La Verdiere, chief justice for the Maine District Court, agreed. The isolation order was withdrawn.
In his decision, he wrote: “The court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country” about the Ebola epidemic. But he added that whether misplaced or not, the fear “is real,” and directed Hickox to allow the state to continue to assess her health status to help assuage the public’s “not entirely rational” anxiety.
Fast forward to 2020. Legal experts aren’t so sure whether the courts, so crucial in protecting Hickox’s civil liberties, will be the bulwark they were just six years ago. At a March 6 webinar sponsored by the American Constitution Society, law professors Michele Goodwin and Stephen Vladek discussed government power during a health crisis.
Congrats to Maine nurse Kaci Hickox and the other Ebola Fighters on being honored as TIME's People of the Year pic.twitter.com/QoK7Pta5I6
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 10, 2014
“Courts matter” in achieving a balance between protecting public health and respecting civil liberties, said Goodwin. In the Hickox case, she observed, the Ebola crisis had become politicized, and the court ruled that the state had not proven its case that she was a public health threat.
But civil liberties advocates have less faith in the courts under the present administration, she added: “Let’s be clear. The terminology being used in many quarters is that the President has stacked the court,” said Goodwin, who directs the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California, Irvine. There are concerns about the influence of “political expediency” on the independence of judges, and whether they can be counted on to rely “on the evidence at hand,” she said.
Given “who sits on the courts these days,” she said, “maybe … we ought to be far more concerned about individuals’ civil liberties.”
The number of conservative judges in federal courts has surged. By the end of 2019, President Donald Trump had successfully appointed 187 of them — including roughly a quarter of all sitting circuit court judges, and two Supreme Court justices.
Goodwin and Vladek, a law professor at the University of Texas, Austin, agreed that federal, state, and local governments have ample authority to address public health crises, like the current one.
An Avalanche of Government Restrictions
As of March 16, more than 4,000 people in the US have tested positive for COVID-19. That figure does not reflect the actual number of victims, which is much higher, and is expected to rise sharply in the coming days. Cities, counties, states, and the federal government have exerted their authority to address the growing public health crisis. Recent headlines demonstrate how much power all levels of government have:
The federal government banned all foreign nationals in Europe, the UK, and the Republic of Ireland from traveling to the US for the next 30 days. An earlier travel ban was imposed on Iran, along with restrictions on travel to and from China and South Korea.
Officials in six San Francisco–area counties ordered 6.7 million residents to “shelter in place” for the next three weeks, staying home and away from others as much as possible.
Thirty-three states closed schools.
Louisiana, Kentucky and Georgia postponed their primary elections. A judge refused a last-minute effort by the governor to delay Ohio’s primary but, at press time, state officials were trying to declare a health emergency to prevent it from going forward.
Cities and states are beginning to shut down bars and restaurants and to prohibit large gatherings of people.
To date, mandatory quarantines of those exposed to coronavirus have largely been restricted to travelers from certain regions of China and cruise ships known to have infected passengers.
However California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) issued guidelines that ask people 65 and older to self-quarantine, but warned that he could make these requests mandatory if they were not voluntarily observed.
This is an area of the law where the Supreme Court in the past gave a lot of leeway to protecting public safety. In 1905, a Massachusetts man refused to be vaccinated against smallpox. In its decision, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court sided with the state, despite the fact that wealthy people in Massachusetts could pay a fee and avoid being vaccinated, Goodwin said.
“A century later, here we are with all these debates,” she added, referring to anti-vaxxers, who oppose routine shots for childhood diseases like measles: “There’s a question, ‘Can we require individuals to be vaccinated?’ Well, the government can, in fact.”
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the majority opinion upholding a Virginia law that permitted the state to forcibly sterilize men and women considered unfit to procreate, Goodwin said. The case, Buck v. Bell, concerned a 16-year-old poor white girl who had been raped at age 16. After the Holmes Court upheld the law, “tens of thousands [of men and women were] forcibly sterilized.”
Holmes perceived increasing births among the lower and inferior classes to be a public health crisis. He cited the Massachusetts ruling that permitted the state to compel someone to be vaccinated as “broad enough to cover snipping fallopian tubes,” Goodwin said, citing Holmes’s words.
The Virginia law served as the model for the Nazis’ eugenics campaign in Germany, Goodwin said. The 1928 Holmes decision has never been overturned.
Nevertheless, Vladek and Goodwin agreed that in recent years, all levels of government have chosen to tread lightly when it comes to balancing public health and civil liberties. Most laws, Vladek said, generally require local and state authorities to document the public health crisis and why “coercive” measures are justified. An individual has the right to challenge a mandate in court.
State and local officials must go through procedural hoops, he said. They have to explain why measures like mandatory quarantines or isolating infected or potentially infected persons are necessary to address a public health crisis. “The government really has to dot the i’s and cross the t’s before calling in the big guns to respond to these public health crises.”
Both Vladek and Goodwin were taken aback by a question posed by WhoWhatWhy: Could the government postpone the 2020 election if the crisis were to worsen?
However, in many jurisdictions, “the government gets to act first, and then the litigation comes second,” Vladek said. Illinois is one state that requires an “advance judicial order” for a quarantine, he added. Illinois, along with Ohio, on March 15 issued orders effectively closing all bars and restaurants, one of the most comprehensive bans now in effect.
State and federal constitutions also have provisions respecting an individual’s right to privacy and autonomy. But, Vladek said, the real brake on governments taking draconian measures is politics. There has to be “sufficient political consensus behind the need for these measures,” he said. As long as they are not “universally perceived as abusive,” he said, the courts usually will uphold these state policies.
He stressed, however, that “calibrating” government responses to these public health challenges depends on “an informed public and the free flow of accurate information.”
What is “alarming,” he said, is “the widespread lack of clarity about what we know, what we don’t know.” That lack of clarity, he added, may be especially important as government officials and lawmakers consider more intrusive surveillance methods to contain the virus.
At a recent Senate hearing, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) suggested the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) consider using Google tracking data to identify those who may have been in contact with infected individuals before they were diagnosed.
“I don’t think there’s any authority for the government to obtain that data simply so that it could identify who these people have been in contact with,” Vladek said. “That’s a bridge too far. … There are limits on what kind of information phone companies and other communications service providers can provide to the government without a court order.”
However, Vladek acknowledged that “if things really do escalate,” the courts might give governments “a whole lot of room … to collect information in ways we wouldn’t otherwise allow.”
Both Vladek and Goodwin were taken aback by a question posed by WhoWhatWhy: Could the government postpone the 2020 election if the crisis were to worsen?
Vladek called the question a “time bomb,” but offered some reassurance. Federal law, he said, makes no provision for any postponement of the federal election, although Congress could theoretically pass a law to delay it.
The political consensus we would need to support a measure like that would only happen “in a truly dire emergency,” he said.
He noted, however, that even delaying the election would not extend Trump’s term in office. It ends next January 20, he said, adding that should the election not take place, the Presidential Succession Act would determine who would be next in line to serve. In this case, it likely would be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he added.
The question “says a lot about the times we’re in,” Goodwin responded. “Ten or 20 years ago, this question would seem laughable. It is dystopic, but we’re also living in times in which things that we thought would never exist, do exist — children in cages, and so much more.”
She suggested accommodations which local jurisdictions are making, or can make, to protect voters — such as mail-in ballots and other efforts to provide “remote access for the vote.”
But underlying the question, she said, is the present problem of “voter disenfranchisement” — whether it’s making people wait for hours to vote or “more explicit” acts of voter suppression:
“Coronavirus or no coronavirus, that’s a real problem for our democracy.”
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 18-03-2020
The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects. The study information was widely shared during the past two weeks after the researchers placed the contents on a preprint server to quickly share their data with colleagues.
The NIH scientists, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' Montana facility at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, compared how the environment affects SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1, which causes SARS. SARS-CoV-1, like its successor now circulating across the globe, emerged from China and infected more than 8,000 people in 2002 and 2003. SARS-CoV-1 was eradicated by intensive contact tracing and case isolation measures and no cases have been detected since 2004. SARS-CoV-1 is the human coronavirus most closely related to SARS-CoV-2. In the stability study the two viruses behaved similarly, which unfortunately fails to explain why COVID-19 has become a much larger outbreak.
The NIH study attempted to mimic virus being deposited from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting, such as through coughing or touching objects. The scientists then investigated how long the virus remained infectious on these surfaces.
The scientists highlighted additional observations from their study:
If the viability of the two coronaviruses is similar, why is SARS-CoV-2 resulting in more cases? Emerging evidence suggests that people infected with SARS-CoV-2 might be spreading virus without recognizing, or prior to recognizing, symptoms. This would make disease control measures that were effective against SARS-CoV-1 less effective against its successor.
In contrast to SARS-CoV-1, most secondary cases of virus transmission of SARS-CoV-2 appear to be occurring in community settings rather than healthcare settings. However, healthcare settings are also vulnerable to the introduction and spread of SARS-CoV-2, and the stability of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols and on surfaces likely contributes to transmission of the virus in healthcare settings.
The findings affirm the guidance from public health professionals to use precautions similar to those for influenza and other respiratory viruses to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2:
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 23-03-2020
The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects. The study information was widely shared during the past two weeks after the researchers placed the contents on a preprint server to quickly share their data with colleagues.
The NIH scientists, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' Montana facility at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, compared how the environment affects SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1, which causes SARS. SARS-CoV-1, like its successor now circulating across the globe, emerged from China and infected more than 8,000 people in 2002 and 2003. SARS-CoV-1 was eradicated by intensive contact tracing and case isolation measures and no cases have been detected since 2004. SARS-CoV-1 is the human coronavirus most closely related to SARS-CoV-2. In the stability study the two viruses behaved similarly, which unfortunately fails to explain why COVID-19 has become a much larger outbreak.
The NIH study attempted to mimic virus being deposited from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting, such as through coughing or touching objects. The scientists then investigated how long the virus remained infectious on these surfaces.
The scientists highlighted additional observations from their study:
If the viability of the two coronaviruses is similar, why is SARS-CoV-2 resulting in more cases? Emerging evidence suggests that people infected with SARS-CoV-2 might be spreading virus without recognizing, or prior to recognizing, symptoms. This would make disease control measures that were effective against SARS-CoV-1 less effective against its successor.
In contrast to SARS-CoV-1, most secondary cases of virus transmission of SARS-CoV-2 appear to be occurring in community settings rather than healthcare settings. However, healthcare settings are also vulnerable to the introduction and spread of SARS-CoV-2, and the stability of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols and on surfaces likely contributes to transmission of the virus in healthcare settings.
The findings affirm the guidance from public health professionals to use precautions similar to those for influenza and other respiratory viruses to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2:
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ZRT-gWZ8M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ZRT-gWZ8M
There seems to be no way to post a link to a video now.....this one is good and frightening. I don't think [at this time] the virus is a bioweapon, but I do see governments and the powerful using it as a convenient way to get to their ultimate dream....complete control and a totalitarian / martial law scenario......
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 26-03-2020
The current crisis is laying bare the extreme injustices and inequalities of our economic and social system.
We are in a battle of visions for how we’re going to respond to this crisis. We will either be catapulted backward to an even more brutal winner-takes-all system — or this will be a wake-up call.
Ideas that were dismissed as too radical just a week ago are starting to seem like the only reasonable path to get out of this crisis and prevent future ones.
We need to use every tool that we have that allows us to hear each other’s voices, to read each other’s words, to see each other’s faces, even if it’s just on screens, to stay organized and stay connected. We have to create spaces where we’re able to deliberate and strategize about what it means to protect our neighbors, our rights, and our planet.
We have to have the confidence to say this is the moment when we change everything.
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 28-03-2020
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 28-03-2020
Here is more evidence there is no sign of genetic manipulation of this virus. It seems to have come from a bat and someone who wanted to eat a bat....
The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.
"By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," said Kristian Andersen, PhD, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research and corresponding author on the paper.
In addition to Andersen, authors on the paper, "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," include Robert F. Garry, of Tulane University; Edward Holmes, of the University of Sydney; Andrew Rambaut, of University of Edinburgh; W. Ian Lipkin, of Columbia University.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging widely in severity. The first known severe illness caused by a coronavirus emerged with the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China. A second outbreak of severe illness began in 2012 in Saudi Arabia with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
On December 31 of last year, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization of an outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus causing severe illness, which was subsequently named SARS-CoV-2. As of February 20, 2020, nearly 167,500 COVID-19 cases have been documented, although many more mild cases have likely gone undiagnosed. The virus has killed over 6,600 people.
Shortly after the epidemic began, Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of SARS-CoV-2 and made the data available to researchers worldwide. The resulting genomic sequence data has shown that Chinese authorities rapidly detected the epidemic and that the number of COVID-19 cases have been increasing because of human to human transmission after a single introduction into the human population. Andersen and collaborators at several other research institutions used this sequencing data to explore the origins and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 by focusing in on several tell-tale features of the virus.
The scientists analyzed the genetic template for spike proteins, armatures on the outside of the virus that it uses to grab and penetrate the outer walls of human and animal cells. More specifically, they focused on two important features of the spike protein: the receptor-binding domain (RBD), a kind of grappling hook that grips onto host cells, and the cleavage site, a molecular can opener that allows the virus to crack open and enter host cells.
Evidence for natural evolution
The scientists found that the RBD portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins had evolved to effectively target a molecular feature on the outside of human cells called ACE2, a receptor involved in regulating blood pressure. The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was so effective at binding the human cells, in fact, that the scientists concluded it was the result of natural selection and not the product of genetic engineering.
This evidence for natural evolution was supported by data on SARS-CoV-2's backbone -- its overall molecular structure. If someone were 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.
"These two features of the virus, the mutations in the RBD portion of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2" said Andersen.
Josie Golding, PhD, epidemics lead at UK-based Wellcome Trust, said the findings by Andersen and his colleagues are "crucially important to bring an evidence-based view to the rumors that have been circulating about the origins of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) causing COVID-19."
"They conclude that the virus is the product of natural evolution," Goulding adds, "ending any speculation about deliberate genetic engineering."
Possible origins of the virus
Based on their genomic sequencing analysis, Andersen and his collaborators concluded that the most likely origins for SARS-CoV-2 followed one of two possible scenarios.
In one scenario, the virus evolved to its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans. This is how previous coronavirus outbreaks have emerged, with humans contracting the virus after direct exposure to civets (SARS) and camels (MERS). The researchers proposed bats as the most likely reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 as it is very similar to a bat coronavirus. There are no documented cases of direct bat-human transmission, however, suggesting that an intermediate host was likely involved between bats and humans.
In this scenario, both of the distinctive features of SARS-CoV-2's spike protein -- the RBD portion that binds to cells and the cleavage site that opens the virus up -- would have evolved to their current state prior to entering humans. In this case, the current epidemic would probably have emerged rapidly as soon as humans were infected, as the virus would have already evolved the features that make it pathogenic and able to spread between people.
In the other proposed scenario, a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population. For instance, some coronaviruses from pangolins, armadillo-like mammals found in Asia and Africa, have an RBD structure very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2. A coronavirus from a pangolin could possibly have been transmitted to a human, either directly or through an intermediary host such as civets or ferrets.
Then the other distinct spike protein characteristic of SARS-CoV-2, the cleavage site, could have evolved within a human host, possibly via limited undetected circulation in the human population prior to the beginning of the epidemic. The researchers found that the SARS-CoV-2 cleavage site, appears similar to the cleavage sites of strains of bird flu that has been shown to transmit easily between people. SARS-CoV-2 could have evolved such a virulent cleavage site in human cells and soon kicked off the current epidemic, as the coronavirus would possibly have become far more capable of spreading between people.
Study co-author Andrew Rambaut cautioned that it is difficult if not impossible to know at this point which of the scenarios is most likely. If the SARS-CoV-2 entered humans in its current pathogenic form from an animal source, it raises the probability of future outbreaks, as the illness-causing strain of the virus could still be circulating in the animal population and might once again jump into humans. The chances are lower of a non-pathogenic coronavirus entering the human population and then evolving properties similar to SARS-CoV-2.
Journal Reference:
- Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, Robert F. Garry. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Lauren Johnson - 28-03-2020
RE: Coronaviris Pandemic - an inflection point in human history? - Peter Lemkin - 29-03-2020
That guy is a GREAT Trump immitator!! I hope that goes 'viral'. I think the ONLY good thing to come out of the current pandemic is it will put the last nail in Trump's political coffin. What wories me is how one will have an election in November, as this will sadly not be over by then and voting by mail would both be oppossed by the Republicans, and nearly impossible to set up in time. Voting by some electronic means would also not be possible in the time available, and some do not have connection to the internet. Both means would also be subject to manipulation without being very carefully constructed and thought out by neutral experts. Best I can think of is an extended voting period, with wide distribution of the ballots before and drive up, drop-off of ballots and individual walk up, drop-off for those without cars. It will make a mess of the election, if one can even be arranged! Trump will surely try to declare some kind of emergency situation and try to cancel the election.