Why I think it came from a lab
Note: before you judge me for what I'm about to say, just know I am speaking from a scientific and biological standpoint. I'm a cell biologist who works in virology, and have a BSc in Anatomy and Cell Biology and MS in Neuroscience. I'm a scientist, not your 40 year old conservative MAGA uncle on Facebook. I absolutely hate how the pandemic was politicized as you should never introduce bipartisan nonsense to indisputable and factual matters like science and diseases.
So coronaviruses are nothing new. There have been previous coronavirus strains that infected the world. There is the one that caused SARS in 2002 and the other that caused MERS in 2012. And yes, bats do spread them. They are species capable of zoonotic infections (between species), including rats (spread the bubonic plague) and cattle. However, COVID-19 was a lot more devastating than the other 2 outbreaks. With all the modern knowledge and technology we have on disease prevention/control and vaccines/drugs, the fact that this outbreak was devastating to the point of causing a global pandemic is suspicious. There is no way something as cataclysmic came from nature given our current immunological and microbiological advancements in the 21st century. And judging how bats have spread coronaviruses in the past, it was never this catastrophic.
This leads me to think there was gain of function research involved using animal models in a lab (the Wuhan Institute of Virology). I do have a theory as to how they conducted their research, but it could be wrong. But gain of function research was definitely taking place. I believe they had animals in the lab that were positive for coronavirus (either bats or rats). They took nasal swabs and/or saliva samples from them to be able to harvest cells that had coronavirus RNA replicated in them. One strange thing about some viruses is that they do not possess any DNA. They contain RNA, which is the nucleotide chain that is generated from DNA during a process known as transcription. And most RNA sequences are converted to proteins via translation. Why some viruses lack DNA, however, I never really knew why.
Now in this day and age, we have the technology to modify the sequence of DNA/RNA. This process is known as gene editing. You would have to cut the sequence at specific nucleotide junctions, either insert or remove nucleotides, and then glue the sequence back together. One famous method of doing so is using the CRISPR technique. But there are many other ways to modify DNA/RNA sequences. These modifications do have an effect on the function of the virus. By editing the virus' RNA sequence, you can either cause the virus to weaken (loss-of-function) or to strengthen (gain-of-function). Some modifications lead to no changes in the viral strength and activity. Weakened viruses are used in traditional vaccines, so this is when RNA editing can be beneficial. However, I do believe gain-of-function gene editing was performed in the lab by using the coronavirus RNA sequences harvested from these animals that tested positive for the virus.
This is one theory as to how the gain-of-function research was conducted. There are many ways to do it, we can never be sure as to how it was exactly performed with these coronavirus samples in the lab.
Now how it spread from the lab to the rest of the world, I have no idea. Obviously, infections spread between people who interact with one another. How it expanded from a single lab to the whole world is a complex process to understand.
So this is my theory as a cell biologist regarding the origins of COVID-19. Yes it came from a lab. I fail to believe something this infectious and destructive came naturally from bats. We have the technology and immunological knowledge to aid in minimizing the spread of illness and creating effective drugs and vaccines. Looking at previous trends where bats have spread coronaviruses to other animals and humans, they did not result in global pandemics to this extent. So I think the virus was genetically modified to become more infectious. What was the reasoning behind this? What was the hypothesis they were trying to test? I don't know.
Here in the US, there are strict regulations as what type of research you can conduct in a lab. In theory, you can create almost anything in a lab, from drugs, to explosives, to deadly bioweapons. However, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. While that strictness is enforced here, it is not in other countries unfortunately.
I am devastated by the destruction the pandemic caused. From a single viral outbreak, to illness, disease, lockdowns, crashing economy, closing of small business, politicization of science and biology, anti-Asian hate, etc... Had we had the knowledge beforehand, this would have fared better for us.
