Post by Panama pfRedd on Jan 5, 2022 11:01:28 GMT -5
This is a long but good read:
bprice.substack.com/p/lab-leak-20
Cliff notes: omicron appears to be a separate branch, possible second lab leak. Or, could be an (intentional) antidote of sorts to Delta (i.e. conferring natural immunity).
quote:
First, look at the phylogenetic tree (it’s basically a family tree for viruses). This image comes from an article in Science, which in turn got it from nextstrain.org:
The x-axis shows time, with earlier times on the left of the graph, later times on the right. The y-axis shows how mutated the viruses are, compared to the original SARS-CoV-2 and to each other. Notice how over time, with natural mutations occurring, the original SARS-CoV-2 has gradually gotten more diverse. You can see delta variants there (in green) nested in what looks like a naturally expanding variety of viruses over time. That’s the main “wedge shape” you see, and it’s what you’d expect to see.
But then look at omicron. It’s the red cluster in the upper right. It’s very, very different. It’s way off the “natural” family tree of descendants of the original SARS-CoV-2. What’s more, if you trace its “stalk” back (i.e., if you look where it branched off from the “family tree”), you see it sprang from an “ancestor” from sometime in Spring 2020.
So, how did that happen? How did it suddenly appear in November 2021, when its “forefather” was a version of the virus that was common in mid-2020?
And where is all the natural variation in between? Why is it not like the other variants, nested in that natural-looking spreading set of gradually mutating descendants?
One parsimonious hypothesis is that some engineering has been done to it, in order to make its evolution look so unnatural. I have not heard another parsimonious hypothesis.
bprice.substack.com/p/lab-leak-20
Cliff notes: omicron appears to be a separate branch, possible second lab leak. Or, could be an (intentional) antidote of sorts to Delta (i.e. conferring natural immunity).
quote:
First, look at the phylogenetic tree (it’s basically a family tree for viruses). This image comes from an article in Science, which in turn got it from nextstrain.org:
The x-axis shows time, with earlier times on the left of the graph, later times on the right. The y-axis shows how mutated the viruses are, compared to the original SARS-CoV-2 and to each other. Notice how over time, with natural mutations occurring, the original SARS-CoV-2 has gradually gotten more diverse. You can see delta variants there (in green) nested in what looks like a naturally expanding variety of viruses over time. That’s the main “wedge shape” you see, and it’s what you’d expect to see.
But then look at omicron. It’s the red cluster in the upper right. It’s very, very different. It’s way off the “natural” family tree of descendants of the original SARS-CoV-2. What’s more, if you trace its “stalk” back (i.e., if you look where it branched off from the “family tree”), you see it sprang from an “ancestor” from sometime in Spring 2020.
So, how did that happen? How did it suddenly appear in November 2021, when its “forefather” was a version of the virus that was common in mid-2020?
And where is all the natural variation in between? Why is it not like the other variants, nested in that natural-looking spreading set of gradually mutating descendants?
One parsimonious hypothesis is that some engineering has been done to it, in order to make its evolution look so unnatural. I have not heard another parsimonious hypothesis.
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