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More than a year after the first cases of pneumonia of unknown origin were detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan Many unknowns persist about the start of the pandemic and a conspiracy theory that is difficult to eradicate: that the new coronavirus is artificial.
A team of epidemiologists from the World Health Organization (WHO) traveled to Wuhan in January to investigate the origin of the new coronavirus with work open to “all hypotheses.”
So far, science has determined that the origin was zoonotic (transmitted to humans from other species) and that the first cases occurred in Wuhan, but relevant information about the beginning is still unknown.
In parallel with scientific studies, countless falsehoods about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, covid-19, have circulated around the world, which has exceeded 104 million infections and 2, 2 million deaths.
One of the most repeated and ingrained messages is the one that states that the virus is artificial. Those who spread this theory in the networks say that it is a weapon, that has been expanded with the help of 5G or even that it is extraterrestrial.
THE CERTAINTY OF NATURAL ORIGIN
The main scientific certainty today about the origin of the new coronavirus is that it arose naturally in some other animal species before infecting humans.
Paradoxically, what scientists see clearer is, at the same time, one of the aspects most questioned by conspiracy theories: that the origin is artificial and has expanded accidentally (when escaping from a laboratory) or intentionally.
All that misinformation has permeated an important part of society. In Spain, according to a survey carried out in early November by the 40dB consulting firm, 64.9% believed that the virus was deliberately created in a laboratory.
Nevertheless, the scientific community rules out that the virus has been manufactured, since its genomic sequence reflects a natural evolution, according to a publication in Nature Medicine.
One of the five authors of the study, Robert Garry, detailed that the closest bat virus “is only 96% similar” and “it is not possible to complete that genetic distance (4%) in a laboratory”.
This group of scientists discovered that spike proteins, the outer part of the virus with which it enters cells, has two basic features: the receptor-binding domain (the hook) and the molecular cleavage site (the key).
The evidence of natural origin was found by checking how the protein hook had evolved to adapt to a molecular characteristic of cells called ACE2, which regulates blood pressure. There was no room for genetic engineering in that case.
LIES ABOUT NOBEL AWARDS
A widespread hoax about artificial creation implicates the Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo, whose identity was supplanted in a widely shared writing on social networks where the Japanese scientist allegedly claims that the virus was created in a Chinese laboratory.
Another Nobel Prize, Luc montagnierHe did claim that SARS-2 had been artificially created from the AIDS virus, but he said so without providing any proof. His reputation as a scientist was already on the decline for his support of unscientific causes such as homeopathy.
The only document that compared the similarities between the AIDS and covid viruses was a pre-publication that was made in January 2020 and that has already been withdrawn as it has not been corroborated.
THE GENOME HAS BEEN CORRECTLY SEQUENCED
Among the lies about the origin is also the one that denies the greatest: that the coronavirus does not exist as such, it is just a new variant of the flu virus.
Texts have been shared that indicate that the new virus could not be isolated or purified in order to be examined, but that is totally false, since it has already been isolated to sequence its genome more than 58,000 times.
On the other hand, the sequencing was done with computer support, but that does not mean that the genetic material was invented by computers – as other hoaxes spread -, but rather that the precision of computers is required to order the 30,000 letters that describe its genome to make it more readable.
THE WUHAN BIOTECHNOLOGICAL LABORATORY, ATTACHING THE NEGATIONISTS
The former American president Donald trump He pointed to a biotech laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a possible incubation site for the virus and said he had evidence, but never provided it.
For the WHO, there is still no evidence that this building was the epicenter of the pandemic and the trace of the first cases leads to a local seafood and animal market, Huanan, located precisely 14 kilometers from the Wuhan laboratory.
This proximity encourages the hypothesis that the new virus escaped from those laboratories, but, as the journal Nature has specified, “there is no evidence” about this relationship and “Scientists believe that the most likely source of the coronavirus is the animal market.”
In the scientific field, the most widespread publication about the possibility that the new coronavirus arose from a “Synthetic route” was outlined by Li-Meng Yan in September in Zenodo magazine.
That text was widely publicized without taking into account that she is not an expert in virology, but an ophthalmologist, And that it was more of an opinion piece, without scientific evidence, in addition to the publication being run by a foundation linked to Steve Bannon, former Trump adviser and conspiracy mentor.
Analyzes of prestigious institutions followed one another that denied the scientific nature of the conclusions she reached, which did not prevent her from giving interviews all over the world.
FALSE LINKS BETWEEN THE WUHAN LAB, PHARMACEUTICALS AND BILL GATES
Another recidivist hoax weighs on the Wuhan laboratory: its connection to the pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines.
Thus, you can find messages that indicate that this is the property of Glaxo, which in turn is of Pfizer, multinational supposedly owned by large funds such as BlackRock and Vanguard and with ties to George Soros and Bill Gates.
This elucubration falls from the first link, since the Wuhan Institute of Virology is owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Government of China, and although they have cooperation agreements with projects in France or the United States, neither is with GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK).
It is also not true that GSK is owned by Pfizer, and the only mutual relationship is a joint subsidiary that they created for the consumer arena.
As for the investment funds Vanguard and BlackRock, they have shares of Pfizer and Microsoft but they are minority and similar to their participation in hundreds of companies in other sectors.
According to another widely publicized hoax, the Pirbright Institute, financially supported by Bill Gates, would have patented the coronavirus causing the current pandemic in 2015, but that patent refers to an attenuated form of coronavirus that only affects chickens and has nothing to do with it. with the Wuhan outbreak.
PATIENT ZERO DID NOT DRINK BAT SOUP
The greatest certainty of the origin of the virus is zoonosis and the clue is lost in the Huanan market, where seafood, fish, pheasants, snakes and other edible animals were sold.
Contrary to what many memes proclaimed, bat soup is not a typical dish in Wuhan, although it is on the Micronesian island of Palau, where some of the shared videos came from.
It would be strange to eat bat in Wuhan, but this data hardly matters. In the first place, because zoonosis does not have to be eaten by the animal in which a new virus emerges; physical proximity is enough. Furthermore, scientists believe that SARS-2 likely originated in the bat, but dwelt in another species before infecting humans.
This was the case with previous coronaviruses, such as civets in SARS-1 and camels in MERS. For SARS-2, the most likely intermediate animal is the pangolin.
Imported frozen products were sold in the Huanan market, a fact pointed out by Chinese media, which suggests that the new coronavirus emerged in another country, with evidence such as the finding of the virus in Argentine beef reaching another similar market.
COSMIC HYPOTHESES
If in China there is abundant information about the origin in another country, another theory places it further away, in outer space. It was formulated by the British-Sri Lankan astrophysicist Chandra Wickramasinghe, who believes that it could arrive in a meteorite that fell in China in October 2019, although neither provided consistent evidence nor that hypothesis has been echoed in the scientific community.
Other conspiracy theories are equally far from scientific soil, such as the one that maintains that 5G telecommunications networks spread the virus, for which it is physically impossible to travel over radio or telephone networks, experts explain.
Military and politicians from several countries have spread, without showing any proof, accusations that the new coronavirus was created as a weapon of war. China and the United States have targeted each other in this way. And the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also blamed Washington.
Therefore, despite the fact that the origins of the seventh coronavirus discovered are not entirely clear to science, the truth is that many falsehoods have circulated about aspects related to its emergence that are ruled out on a scientific basis.
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