However, international authoritative organizations and most scholars in the fields of virology and immunology have indicated that these speculations lack scientific support, and all the evidence so far shows that COVID-19 is not man-made.
First of all, the existing scientific evidence has shown that COVID-19's characteristics can't be realized by human operation, but can only be the product of natural evolution. On March 17, the international team of Scripps Institute and other institutions in the United States reported in the British journal Nature Medicine that they analyzed and compared the genome data of various coronaviruses, including COVID-19, and came to the conclusion that the receptor binding domain of COVID-19 spike protein has high binding efficiency with the "angiotensin converting enzyme 2(ACE2)" receptor of human cells, which cannot be realized by human genetic engineering. In addition, COVID-19's unique molecular structure also ruled out the possibility of laboratory synthesis, because people could not find a molecular structure similar to the known virus to construct this new virus.
"By comparing (COVID-19) genome sequence data with (other) known coronavirus strains, we can determine that COVID-19 originated from natural processes." Christian anderson, an associate professor at Scripps Institute who led the research, said in a communique.
Secondly, some evolutionary features of COVID-19 are not unique. Researchers can find similar evolutionary events in nature, which further supports the conclusion that it originated from nature. In a preprinted paper published in March, researchers from Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Academy of Sciences said that there were multiple amino acid insertions between the two protein subunits S 1 and S2 of COVID-19 spike protein, and there were similar insertions between the subunits S 1 and S2 of coronavirus strain they obtained from Yunnan bats, which indicated that this insertion was completely possible in nature.
Thirdly, scientists found a coronavirus strain in wild animals, which is very close to COVID-19, indicating that this virus has natural reservoir. Up to now, the closest coronavirus known to COVID-19 is rat 13 strain isolated from Yunnan bat, which has 96% homology with COVID-19 genome sequence. In addition, studies show that the coronavirus carried by pangolin is closely related to COVID-19, especially in the spike protein receptor binding domain that helps the virus invade cells, which is as high as 97.4% compared with COVID-19, indicating that pangolin may be involved in the evolution and spread of COVID-19.
Edward Holmes, a virologist from the University of Sydney, Australia, who participated in the aforementioned international research team, recently issued a statement saying that coronaviruses usually exist in wild animals and often "jump" to new hosts, which is the most likely explanation for the origin of COVID-19. He said that the number, diversity and evolution of coronavirus in wild animals support the view that COVID-19 is a product of natural evolution, and it is necessary to conduct large-scale sampling and testing of animals in nature to determine the exact source of COVID-19.
In addition, the reason why COVID-19 originated in the laboratory is far-fetched. Eric leroy, an expert in tropical virology at the French Institute for Development, said that Luc Montagnier, a French virologist and Nobel Prize winner, and others think that COVID-19 originated in the laboratory because some fragments in COVID-19's genome are the same as those of HIV, but in fact, it is very common for a virus to carry the same tiny gene fragments as other viruses, because the genome is very large. Leroy said that after comparing the genomes of COVID-19 and other viruses through a specific algorithm, they found that the smaller the relevant gene fragments, the more similar the fragments carried by COVID-19 are to distant viruses.
Fadra Chaeb, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said on 2 1 that WHO is currently fighting two "epidemics", namely, the COVID-19 epidemic and the "false information epidemic".
Many experts also stressed that we should be alert to the political purpose behind such fallacies as "COVID-19's artificial theory" and "COVID-19 originated in the laboratory".
Jean-Franois Delphes Lacey, a French immunologist and head of the COVID-19 Epidemiology Science Committee, said that COVID-19's hypothesis from the laboratory was "a conspiracy theory view, which does not belong to the real scientific category". Hassan Wali, an associate professor of epidemiology at Zhuo Le Bo University, pointed out that some people use rumors for political purposes. "We must be careful not to give rumors room to live.".
Alexander Semenoff, deputy director of the Pastier Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology under the Russian Federation's Consumer Rights Protection and Public Welfare Supervision Bureau, believes that some people claim that COVID-19 originated from man-made "to cover up the incompetence of its health system or its fault in fighting the epidemic", which is actually shattered glass.