. . . none of it existed in nature. . . .
Wrong and missing the 64 dollar question.
COVID SARS-CoV-2 is the
SEVENTH coronavirus known to infect humans and the third to cause severe disease. Further, coronaviruses are known to have have been around for hundreds of years, largely staying in animals. The problem is that with more population density we have more opportunities for transmission to humans. Even then two of the four main types only create relatively mild respiratory and stomach symptoms. This time the odds caught up with us.
As WJBertrand mentioned AND which is the same as I've heard from my daughter for nearly a year, the analysis of the genome in both the US and EU have found
NONE of the
multiple potential markers of a lab origin. For example, from the following Nature article of 17 March 2020 when the outside world did not yet have much data from the Chinese and we in the west were doing our own lab investigations:
"...
Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation."
. . .
"It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus. As noted above, the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution different from those previously predicted. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used. However, the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone."
It would have been politically great when this was written to be able to blame the Chinese for creation of the virus.
The WHO group just came to the same conclusion now, 11 months later. The little piece that the new WHO report adds are new possible sources before the wet market in Wuhan became the super spreader launch point. What the WHO omits, obviously to not rock the boat politically, is how the Chinese initially did a cover-up till the doctor posted publicly what was going on before dying of it. Since the Chinese had successfully done the same with the SARS coronavirus, bird flu and swine flu, it's easy to guess that they pulled out the same playbook not realizing how much worse the DNA of this virus would be. And we all know the old bit that "assume" makes an ASS out of U and of ME so yes, they bit the world in the ass, compounded in the US by an incredibly inept response.
But the important thing to me is now that we can see a light at the end of this tunnel,
WTF are we the US and we the world going to do to prevent the next one?
After all and regardless of where they began, there was the Russian Flu, Avian Flu exploded in Europe, Swine Flu in Spain then again a couple of times in different places, HIV in Africa till the US became the super spreader, etc. There WILL be another and with increasing population density we need a plan fast, because the US monitors were pulled out of China, one of the main watchdog groups in the US Govt were disbanded, and the EU budget is falling apart.