Asturias 56 - I didn't make those comments lightly.
Various studies (many published) are categorical about CV mutating. It would be bizarre for it not to!
Two new studies have recently been released analysing SARS-CoV-2 mutations.
One study, from Arizona State University, discovered a large DNA deletion in a virus sample taken from a patient in Tempe.The second study,
currently still a pre-print from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, tracked mutations throughout the outbreak, and hypothesised that one strain of the virus is more infectious than the original Wuhan strain.The Arizona study generated three full-length SARS-CoV-2 genomes from a series of samples; they found that one of these genomes, which they've named AZ-ASU2923, had a large deletion - 81 DNA base pairs - in a gene called ORF7a.The ORF7a gene creates an accessory protein, which helps the virus infect, replicate and spread inside the human host. Specifically, the protein is thought to help the virus to evade our immune system and kill the cell once the replication process is complete.
As for the virus being the product of a Wuhan Lab, whilst there isn't (yet) a smoking gun, it is vey, very likely that it was a military virus - and that is bad for number of reasons.
1) Ground Zero was Wuhan - the 35th largest city in China - 11,000,000 people.
2) Wuhan is the location of the main Chinese Military bio weapons lab.
3) The Chinese have never specifically said who patient zero is.
4) The story is a wet market - selling christ knows what but I would describe all such things as evil.
5) As near as the Chinese have come to a patient zero that person never actually visited the wet market.
6) The DNA sequence released by the Chinese apparently has sequences that don't appear in nature. Mutations are always possible, but what are the odds of a mutation vs genetic engineering?
7) The head of the Wuhan Lab spent ten years working at the University of North Carolina working on Corona virus sequencing. That person left UNC to become head of the Wuhan Bio Weapons Lab.
8) The Chinese are highly defensive on anything to do with this and are publicly alleging that the US released the virus in Wuhan - co-incidentally the very same city as their own bio weapons lab?
Do these facts 'prove' the virus came from a weapons lab? Not quite, but what are the odds of ALL those being true and the virus NOT being an escaped military virus? It's highly unlikely.
Where it's come from now is irrelevant really, except that business is unlikely to recover properly until there is a vaccine and if it is a military virus a vaccine will be a lot harder and more time consuming to arrive at. Airlines, particularly, are at the very front of the front lines of this and it is not going to be a pretty picture for a long time to come.
Don't be so selfish about this either. Think of Alan. Alan must be absolutely beside himself having to borrow money without handing most of it out to himself!