"Difference in Receptor Usage between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Coronavirus and SARS-Like Coronavirus of Bat Origin" Journal Of Virology, published online 2007 Dec 12 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/ (archive version)
Fact: Researchers in 2007 successfully created a human ACE2-binding virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology using source material from SARS-CoV-1 and HIV-1, with help from bats.
Conjecture: The implications are inseparable from the knowledge. What they describe sure does seem today, with 2.5 years of pandemic information behind us, like SARS-CoV-2. Or a precursor to it, with a decade of more experimentation afterward.
Discussion: So, after that figurative gut punch, how do you feel and what do you think about this knowledge? It's obvious that some people would take it and begin harassing random Chinese people online and offline. Or they will feel hopeless about our capability to survive this pandemic. Don't. Just don't. Not either of them.
This knowledge of the past adds nothing to our understanding of today's SARS-CoV-2 biology, so in that sense it's irrelevant data. Today's virus could still be a natural mutation in bats that crossed to humans. It is possible that the study accurately predicted the danger of bat coronavirus mutation and its danger to humans.
The study says that they manipulated only the spike protein, not the main body of the virus. If our minds begin to ponder even the tiniest implication, though, then it adds huge influence to our understanding of China's "Zero Covid" policy and the capitalist world's complete abdication of medical "harm minimization" long term. I remember like others from early in the pandemic when claims were made about airborne HIV. This new knowledge makes that pithy description difficult to escape as a scary possibility, doesn't it? We know there is a long list of similarities between the two infections. This tweet seems eerily prescient: "the world will have to end up on antivirals to control it". (See again: capitalism. Profit!) We've almost reached that understanding of Long Covid, a year after it was written.
Potential upside: We might learn from SARS-CoV-2 that a viral spike protein can, in and of itself, be dangerous. That's big news. I've heard for decades that the spike is just the "key" for delivery into cells while the viral body is the "package" which is dangerous. It has big implications for mRNA vaccines that duplicate a spike exactly. At least such vaccines have limited lifespan, while a full virus replicates dangerously.
no subject
Journal Of Virology, published online 2007 Dec 12
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/ (archive version)
Fact: Researchers in 2007 successfully created a human ACE2-binding virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology using source material from SARS-CoV-1 and HIV-1, with help from bats.
Conjecture: The implications are inseparable from the knowledge. What they describe sure does seem today, with 2.5 years of pandemic information behind us, like SARS-CoV-2. Or a precursor to it, with a decade of more experimentation afterward.
Discussion: So, after that figurative gut punch, how do you feel and what do you think about this knowledge? It's obvious that some people would take it and begin harassing random Chinese people online and offline. Or they will feel hopeless about our capability to survive this pandemic. Don't. Just don't. Not either of them.
This knowledge of the past adds nothing to our understanding of today's SARS-CoV-2 biology, so in that sense it's irrelevant data. Today's virus could still be a natural mutation in bats that crossed to humans. It is possible that the study accurately predicted the danger of bat coronavirus mutation and its danger to humans.
The study says that they manipulated only the spike protein, not the main body of the virus. If our minds begin to ponder even the tiniest implication, though, then it adds huge influence to our understanding of China's "Zero Covid" policy and the capitalist world's complete abdication of medical "harm minimization" long term. I remember like others from early in the pandemic when claims were made about airborne HIV. This new knowledge makes that pithy description difficult to escape as a scary possibility, doesn't it? We know there is a long list of similarities between the two infections. This tweet seems eerily prescient: "the world will have to end up on antivirals to control it". (See again: capitalism. Profit!) We've almost reached that understanding of Long Covid, a year after it was written.
Potential upside: We might learn from SARS-CoV-2 that a viral spike protein can, in and of itself, be dangerous. That's big news. I've heard for decades that the spike is just the "key" for delivery into cells while the viral body is the "package" which is dangerous. It has big implications for mRNA vaccines that duplicate a spike exactly. At least such vaccines have limited lifespan, while a full virus replicates dangerously.