Free Republic

The coronavirus, COVID-19, which originated in China and is responsible for the global pandemic, has a unique structural feature that none of its closest viral relatives yet identified have, a furin polybasic cleavage site. Cleavage sites similar to that found in COVID-19 are present in some naturally-occurring coronaviruses, but in completely separate evolutionary pathways from COVID-19. It has also been demonstrated that such coronavirus cleavage sites can be modified by genetic engineering to alter viral pathogenicity, sometimes increasing it. Scientists in China have used site-directed mutagenesis to alter the cleavage site of an infectious bronchitis virus by introducing basic amino...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top expert on infectious disease, on Friday, rejected a conspiracy theory that the novel coronavirus escaped a Chinese lab. "A group of highly-qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences in bats as they evolve. The mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human," Fauci said at the daily White House press briefing in response to a question from a reporter on the theory, which has been pushed by President Donald Trump's allies in recent days....

Unfounded speculation, mystery and online rumour making, this isn’t a true crime series -- it’s people’s attempts to figure out the origins of COVID-19. Theories circulating online is that the virus keeping most of the world in isolation was created in a lab in Wuhan, China, where the first cases of COVID-19 was recorded. Debate has increased in recent days: the Washington Post reported leaked intelligence cables in 2018 raised safety concerns of the lab in question; and US President Donald Trump was asked about the rumour following a Fox News story containing unverified claims the virus was created in...