RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – If you tend to believe in conspiracy theories, you can rest easy. The new coronavirus was not engineered in a lab. According to a scientific study conducted by researchers at universities in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, and published in Nature Medicine magazine, the virus is the result of natural evolution, without any kind of human engineering.
The effectiveness of the virus in binding itself to cells in the human body suggests that it is the result of natural selection, according to researchers.
“By comparing available genome sequencing data from the virus’ chains, we are able to firmly determine that the SARS-CoV-2 [as the new coronavirus is called] originated from natural processes,” said Kristian Andersen, associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, a US-based non-profit medical research center.
According to the research, the molecular structure of the new coronavirus could not be something made in the laboratory because it is very different from what is seen in other diseases of the same group. However, it bears similarities to known viruses that affect bats and pangolins, which would not be used in genetic engineering.
Among the hypotheses considered by the global scientific community is that the new coronavirus has evolved in some animal species (it is not yet known for certain which it would be) and thus made the transition to the human organism.
One of the (untrue) conspiracy theories about the new coronavirus was that the virus had escaped from a biological weapons laboratory in China. Now, science shows that the coronavirus is definitely nothing but a mutation, which is inherent to viruses.