As someone who wasn't totally sure about the lab leak hypothesis before, this is rather convincing. Especially for the path that omicron took.
I'm also surprised gain of function research has not been banned, the risk is far too high
I'm also surprised gain of function research has not been banned, the risk is far too high
A New Scientist article from two weeks ago suggests two other hypothesis for the evolution of omicron: that it either evolved in a single immune-compromised person, or that it jumped to an animal population and then jumped back: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2302268-how-did-the-omi...
I've been following COVID news the same way I do the weather during tornado season. That is to say, consistently and with an effort at personal awareness, but I'm hardly an expert. Yet I'm aware of several other "parsimonious hypotheses" which the author is not, and, worse, they apparently consider their own ignorance as evidence.
However, this actually made the article less credible to me, as this make me feel the article's purpose is to build a narrative and try to discredit everyone else, not to fairly evaluate all theories equally.
One thing I have been feeling about internet is there are too many experts on it, so one can always find enough quotes that support ones theory. However, as a reader, it's become impossible to determine whether particular expert should be trusted.
In the paper that the article links about mutations in an HIV patient (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.03.21258228v...)
There is a figure 1 and the left side (A) which shows a maximum-likelihood phylogenetic tree. If you examine this tree, you can see that the highlighted piece is based off a recent (to the HIV patient's case) variant.
On the other hand, the linked article (https://bprice.substack.com/p/lab-leak-20) has a tweet by Jonatan Pallesen showing a tree for Omicron. This tree shows that Omicron is based off of a variant from a surpringly long time ago. This alone is bizarre.
That combined with the lack of silent mutations is extremely suspicious. I'm not saying this is concrete evidence or anything, but its very strange and doesn't appear to line up with a natural course of evolution
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/science/bat-coronaviruses...