The possible lab-leak origin of SARS-CoV-2: why is an inquiry into this
matter so critical?
Abstract
The progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 remains unknown, according to a preliminary
report released on 9 June 2022 by the WHO panel. Jesse Bloom pondered
about the SARS-CoV-2 emergence long before December 2019, putting in
check the joint WHO-China report. In addition, a rare conflict of
interest occurred: ‘Mr. Inattention’ was a member of the team that the
WHO sent to China in 2021 to investigate the COVID-19 origin. The
presence of ‘Mr. Inattention’ provides evidence that WHO overlooked a
troubling possibility: apparently, there were those who had at least
planned to develop full-length infectious clones of bat SARS-related
coronaviruses, with insertion of a fragment (proteolytic cleavage site)
of this virus into bat coronaviruses, such a cleavage site being able to
interact with furin, an enzyme expressed in human cells. Some moral
threshold may have been damaged, threatening civilizational security and
public health, given the hypothesis of an unnatural origin of
SARS-CoV-2. In other words, there is a possibility of a lab-associated
origin of this novel pathogen. This makes it illegal to patent vaccines
against COVID-19 in Brazil and all other 192 member states of the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), at least as long as such
suspicion exists.