zlacker

>>BellLa+(OP)
1. There is no viral backbone anyone knows of which would have been used in this research

2. There is no spike protein anyone knows of which would have been used in this research

3. The PRRAR furin cleavage site is not one humans would have tried it is unlike any other known furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses

4. There are now many known related sarbecoviruses which have been found with furin cleavage sites

5. Furin cleavage sites have independently evolved in multiple different branches of coronaviruses, probably a dozen times that we know of now.

6. The furin cleavage site is short and can easily happen through recombination with another virus due to coinfection.

7. This is very likely what happened due to infection with the SARS-CoV-2 ancestor and an HKU9-like virus.

It is not particularly suspicious that the thing which we were worried about happening and causing a zoonotic spillover event is the thing which actually happened.

>>lamont+A51
There is a nearly identical RBD in the wild. But... without the furin cleavage site. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28649716

And you know what, northern Laos where the RBD was found, and south Yunnan, where the well documented sars outbreak happened (which presumably led to the discovery of ratg13), share a border with each other

>>google+iu1
What if EcoHealth (originally Wildlife Preservation Trust International) was infiltrated by eco-terrorists who did the reasearch anyway then released a depopulation virus to punish humans and 'restore balance' to the ecosystem, in a sicko 'Army of the 12 Monkeys'-style act of terrorism? But either they weren't that successful (only 5 million deaths is not depopulation) or their goal was lockdowns and reduced air travel to give the environment a breather.

>>uap+W22
Please don't pollute HN with mindless, needless speculation