There is no “origin” to SARS-CoV-2

Revising the paradigm: Are bats really pathogen reservoirs or do they possess an efficient immune system?

“…However, many viruses carried by bats cannot infect humans without first undergoing a natural process of evolution, meaning that bats carry the ancestral viruses and not the human pathogen (Forni et al, 2017;Clayton and Munir, 2020;Latinne et al, 2020). This is also what is known so far for COVID-19 (Poon et al, 2004;Boni et al, 2020;Ruiz-Aravena et al, 2022;Frutos et al, 2022). We should seek to avoid the disruption of their natural habitats that are resulting from rapid urbanization, (Greger, 2007).…”

“…Notably, the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the bat virus cannot bind to human cells, indicating that it is not the direct source of the pandemic ( Andersen et al., 2020 ; Chan et al., 2020 ; Ruiz-Aravena et al., 2022 ). Although there is some evidence that the potential ancestral COVID-19 virus had originated in bats ( Shereen et al., 2020 ), to date, two years after the pandemic first struck, we still do not know the direct source of the human pathogenic COVID-19 variant ( Ruiz-Aravena et al., 2022 ; Frutos et al., 2022 ). The bats’ widespread image as a danger to public health will, however, be difficult to rehabilitate ( Zaho, 2020 ; MacFarlane and Rocha, 2020 ).…”

Covid-19: Early Cases and Disease Spread

“…Unfortunately, this approach is of limited value for coronaviruses because of -post-transciptional genome editing (transitions C => U) that adds to an already high rate of mutations [17]. However, despite these uncertainties, such studies are in favor of an earlier beginning of the pandemic, between July and Fall 2019 [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. These findings must be interpreted with caution, especially given that the first available complete genome sequences were obtained in January 2020.…”

Una actualización con relación a la zoonosis del SARs-CoV-2 a dos años de la pandemia

“…Actualmente en el 2022, este es un tema de alta preocupación y muy controversial, los debates han sido, y siguen siendo muy discutidos, a menudo violentos y agresivos e inmersos en el ámbito de la política, los conflictos geoestratégicos y los intereses personales que se van apoderando del análisis científico (Dawood et al, 2022). Entre las dos hipótesis principales del origen del virus se tienen un origen natural a través del modelo de "desbordamiento" ("spillover") o un origen por fuga de laboratorio (Borsetti et al, 2021;Ruiz-Medina et al, 2021;Dawood et al, 2022;Frutos et al, 2022a). Muchas publicaciones recientemente han analizado la teoría del origen natural del virus SARS-CoV-2 y lo han confrontado con la teoría de la fuga de laboratorio.…”

“…No existe un origen determinado para ninguna especie animal o vegetal, simplemente un proceso evolutivo y selectivo en el que el azar y el entorno juega un papel fundamental. Lo mismo es cierto para los virus (Frutos et al, 2022a).…”