A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence

is one that combines fragments of different viruses.) These revelations prompted the NIH’s grant specialists to ask a critical question: Should the work be subject to a federal moratorium on what was called gain-of-function research? > But the [2015 research paper he cited](https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985) was not particularly reassuring. In it, Shi Zhengli and a preeminent coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina, Ralph Baric, mixed components of SARS-like viruses from different species, and created a novel chimera that was able to directly infect human cells. (Baric did not respond to written questions seeking comment.) > If anything, the MERS study Daszak proposed was even riskier. So he pitched a compromise to the NIH: that if any of the recombined strains showed 10 times greater growth than a natural virus, “we will immediately: i) stop all experiments with the mutant, ii) inform our NIAID Program Officer and the UNC [Institutional Biosafety Committee] of these results and iii) participate in decision making trees to decide appropriate paths forward.” > This mention of UNC brought a puzzled response from an NIH program officer, who pointed out that the proposal had said the research would be performed at the WIV. “Can you clarify where the work with the chimeric viruses will actually be performed?” the officer wrote. Ten days later, with still no response from Daszak, the program officer emailed him again. On June 27, Daszak responded, buoyant as ever: > “You are correct to identify a mistake in our letter. UNC has no oversight of the chimera work, all of which will be conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology…. We will clarify tonight with Prof. Zhengli Shi exactly who will be notified if we see enhanced replication…my understanding is that I will be notified straight away, as [principal investigator], and that I can then notify you at NIAID. Apologies for the error!” > Allowing such risky research to go forward at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was “simply crazy, in my opinion,” says Jack Nunberg, director of the Montana Biotechnology Center. “Reasons are lack of oversight, lack of regulation, the environment in China,” where scientists who publish in prestigious journals get rewarded by the government, creating dangerous incentives. “So that is what really elevates it to the realm of, ‘No, this shouldn’t happen.’” In general, his actions make clear he's much more aligned with the Chinese government than the US, so extending Daszak to US govt purely based off of nationality seems unjust. > On January 30, Daszak went on CGTN America, the U.S. outpost for Chinese state television, and said two things that proved to be spectacularly wrong. “I’m very optimistic…that this outbreak will begin to slow down,” he said. “We’re seeing a small amount of human-to-human transmission in other countries, but it’s not uncontrollable." He went on to conclude that the Chinese government was taking all necessary steps “to be open and transparent, and work with WHO, and talk to scientists from around the world, and where necessary, bring them in to help. They’re doing that. It’s exactly what needs to happen.”

enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis.... On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations."

down, while the other city or cities which should have had a raging epidemic by now still went unnoticed? That's what I mean, these other theories to explain away what is the most staightforward explanation makes no sense, and invokes too many unlikely scenarios or coincidences. Regarding gain-of-function, see [nature article from 2015](https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat...) questioning the safety of gain-of-function research, and the article that [triggered the reaction](https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985). Part of that research took place in the Wuhan lab. (Then there are the conflicts of interest of the WHO investigator Peter Daszak, who is very quick to discredit any theory that the virus might have escaped from the lab...) Again, this is a farce, and it would almost be funny if it weren't for all the dead and the generally shitty situation for most of the world at the moment.

viruses". This is not the same thing and it would not be rational to compare the two. The posts claim that: "What this means, in non-technical language, is that Dr. Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. ". That is simply false, they are collecting and testing viruses. They were not creating new ones. This post also tries to claim that these researches had been doing genetic engineering in past work because of this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 Note that Nature added an editors note here: "30 March 2020 Editors’ note, March 2020: We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus." Also note that the Wuhan lab is actually 5th author on this paper. In big publications like this order of authors is very important. 5th author usually means that they had a very minor role in the work. I.e a consulting role. This is compounded by the fact that only 2 people from the Wuhan lab worked on this paper. It is actually more likely that the "genetic engineering" took place at the University of North Carolina and not in Wuhan. The paper lists a 9 people on the project in the US. Usually the people who do the actual lab work get first author. Even further what about the 9 other virology labs that are on list? They have about the same amount of contributions to this paper? Why are they not suspect? In my opinion these are some pretty key details to leave out, especially from a science journalist who should not be hiding some of the key facts here.

certainly worse than the 1957 flu pandemic, which was bad enough and which resulted in many governmental edicts similar to today, with many school and library closings. I agree we need to keep cool and not overreact or panic, but we also need to take this thing very seriously. Even the experts are trying to figure this thing out. Disease modeling has come a long way since 1918, but modelers are not seers. 1. https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/24/dna-sleuths-read-coronav... 2. https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 3. https://www.encyclopedia.com/media/educational-magazines/inf...

here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 The US government pulled funding for all programs like this, but this one was allowed to continue because they had secured funding before the ban. Discussion here: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lab-made-coronavi... Whether they accurately predicted the future, or made a huge lab error is up for debate in my book, and is something that should at least be investigated. Lab mistakes happen all of the time, and we're talking about something that has a subsantial ability to spread itself. Here is an expert's unbiased analysis of whether this could be man made: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1221990534643929089.html Given all of this, I don't think it's wholly unreasonable to consider whether or not human error played a role in all of this.

viruses". This is not the same thing and it would not be rational to compare the two. The posts claim that: "What this means, in non-technical language, is that Dr. Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. ". That is simply false, they are collecting and testing viruses. They were not creating new ones. This post also tries to claim that these researches had been doing genetic engineering in past work because of this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 Note that Nature added an editors note here: "30 March 2020 Editors’ note, March 2020: We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus." Also note that the Wuhan lab is actually 5th author on this paper. In big publications like this order of authors is very important. 5th author usually means that they had a very minor role in the work. I.e a consulting role. This is compounded by the fact that only 2 people from the Wuhan lab worked on this paper. It is actually more likely that the "genetic engineering" took place at the University of North Carolina and not in Wuhan. The paper lists a 9 people on the project in the US. Usually the people who do the actual lab work get first author. Even further what about the 9 other virology labs that are on list? They have about the same amount of contributions to this paper? Why are they not suspect? In my opinion these are some pretty key details to leave out, especially from a science journalist who should not be hiding some of the key facts here.

not be rational to compare the two. The posts claim that: "What this means, in non-technical language, is that Dr. Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. ". That is simply false, they are collecting and testing viruses. They were not creating new ones. This post also tries to claim that these researches had been doing genetic engineering in past work because of this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 Note that Nature added an editors note here: "30 March 2020 Editors’ note, March 2020: We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus." Also note that the Wuhan lab is actually 5th author on this paper. In big publications like this order of authors is very important. 5th author usually means that they had a very minor role in the work. I.e a consulting role. This is compounded by the fact that only 2 people from the Wuhan lab worked on this paper. It is actually more likely that the "genetic engineering" took place at the University of North Carolina and not in Wuhan. The paper lists a 9 people on the project in the US. Usually the people who do the actual lab work get first author. Even further what about the 9 other virology labs that are on list? They have about the same amount of contributions to this paper? Why are they not suspect? In my opinion these are some pretty key details to leave out, especially from a science journalist who should not be hiding some of the key facts here.

is that Dr. Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. ". That is simply false, they are collecting and testing viruses. They were not creating new ones. This post also tries to claim that these researches had been doing genetic engineering in past work because of this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 Note that Nature added an editors note here: "30 March 2020 Editors’ note, March 2020: We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus." Also note that the Wuhan lab is actually 5th author on this paper. In big publications like this order of authors is very important. 5th author usually means that they had a very minor role in the work. I.e a consulting role. This is compounded by the fact that only 2 people from the Wuhan lab worked on this paper. It is actually more likely that the "genetic engineering" took place at the University of North Carolina and not in Wuhan. The paper lists a 9 people on the project in the US. Usually the people who do the actual lab work get first author. Even further what about the 9 other virology labs that are on list? They have about the same amount of contributions to this paper? Why are they not suspect? In my opinion these are some pretty key details to leave out, especially from a science journalist who should not be hiding some of the key facts here.