2025-0109h-0909 Austin, TX
Five years ago today, I blogged about the news of a coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China (2020 Day 9: New Strain of Coronavirus found in Wuhan, China).
I had traveled through Wuhan a year prior and I was inspired to blog about the coronavirus outbreak. Rereading my blog post, I’m intrigued by how much detail I went into the virology of coronaviruses. I understand it now as quantum sensing of the future possible universe. The response to the novel Wuhan coronavirus pandemic was a large emotional event for humanity. It does not surprise me that many people felt it coming. I’m fairly confident that I wasn’t the only one.
Later, on May 9, 2020, I wrote another blog post 20191230M Day -1: “Bat Woman” Shi Zhengli begins testing mysterious patient samples at Wuhan Institute of Virology. This blog post about Shi Zheng-Li mentioned quotes from a Scientific American article about her: How China’s ‘Bat Woman’ Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus. Around the time I was in Wuhan, she and co-authors submitted for publication to Viruses, 2019, 11(3), 210 a paper (https://doi.org/10.3390/v11030210): Bat Coronaviruses in China. This paper discussed many bat coronaviruses, including the original SARS-CoV that was responsible for the 2002-2003 outbreak.
SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 share 80% genetic similarity. One of the main differences between these two viruses is in the spike protein (S). The SARS-CoV spike protein binds to the human ACE2 receptor with a lower binding affinity compared to SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 has mutations in key residues of the receptor binding domain (RBD). These mutations enhances its binding affinity for ACE2, resulting in more efficient cell entry. Additionally, SARS-CoV-2 has a unique furin cleavage site between the S1 and S2 subunits of the spike protein. This cleavage site feature further increases the efficiency of the spike protein activation, resulting in SARS-CoV-2 being more infectious.
The unique furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein raises suspicions of its natural origin. This is because the furin cleavage site is not found in the most closely related coronaviruses. This evidence alone is not enough to prove an unnatural origin. There are genetic markers that would prove an unnatural origin, but these markers are not found in the SARS-CoV-2 genome. So, while groups of individuals continue to speculate about the unnatural origin of SARS-CoV-2, a natural origin is still the more scientifically supported theory.
surfing the universe 