US research: Newcomer virus does not come from laboratory

Chinanews.com, March 29. According to a comprehensive foreign media report, a recent study by the US scientists on the new crown virus showed that the virus that caused the global pandemic was a natural product and not constructed in the laboratory. In addition, Robert Gary, a professor at the Tulane University School of Medicine, one of the authors of the paper, said Wuhan "is not the source of the virus" and has an earlier origin than that.

The study is published on the Natural Medicine website. Image source: Screenshot from "Natural Medicine" website

According to reports, research published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine has shown that the new crown virus "is not constructed in the laboratory, nor is it a purposefully man-made virus." But research does not give an exact answer to its natural origin.

In an interview with ABC, Gary said that given the current conspiracy theories are circulating on the Internet, he believes it is necessary to use the entire team's strength to study the origin of this new coronavirus.

The researchers found that the new coronavirus was not created by humans because it does not have a "previously used virus backbone structure". Therefore, it may be a virus found in bats and another virus carried by pangolins.

The researchers said that the new coronavirus is 96% similar to the coronavirus found in bats, but certain variations explain why it is so infectious. Gary said mutations in surface proteins may have triggered the pandemic, allowing it to infect human cells.

The director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, also supported the idea of ​​this article on a personal blog. He said the study made it difficult to argue that the new crown virus did not originate in nature.

He also said that according to research, another possibility that triggered the pandemic was that the virus had been transmitted from animals to humans years ago, even decades ago, and finally acquired human-to-human transmission. Ability and cause serious illness.

In addition, Gary also said that many people believe that the virus originated in a seafood market in Wuhan, China, which may be a misunderstanding. "Our analysis and other analyses point to an earlier origin than that." "There must be some cases in Wuhan, but not the source of the virus."