If the coronavirus was created artificially, according to the doctor of biological sciences, professor at the School of Systems Biology at George Mason University in the United States, virologist Ancha Baranova, then this would eventually make it possible to find out its origin. This point of view in an interview with RBC was expressed by an infectious disease specialist, Doctor of Medical Sciences Nikolai Malyshev.
According to Malyshev, COVID-19 appeared naturally, came from East, Southeast Asia, since many different infections occurred from there. “But nature is incredibly diverse, and a person likes to penetrate where it is not worth it – for example, go into the jungle, meet various animals. Therefore, the variety of possibilities for the natural appearance of the virus is much wider than people can imagine, ”said the virologist.
He noted that those people who adhere to the version of the artificial origin of COVID-19 are beginning to look for evidence of this, making arguments about the presence of RNA fragments in the virus that cannot appear naturally. “But nature is diverse and can surprise you so much that anything can be,” the expert added.
Larisa Popovich, director of the Institute for Health Economics at the Higher School of Economics, agreed with him. Like Malyshev, in a conversation with RBC, she rejected the version about the artificial origin of COVID-19. “The emergence of a virus in one way or another is a matter of evidence, not faith and assumptions. At the moment, there is no evidence of artificial origin, no additional arguments in favor of the fact that evolution comes from an initially artificially created virus, ”said the virologist.
According to her, claims about the artificial origin of the coronavirus are not serious, so until there is evidence and understanding of where the virus came from, it is too early to make statements on this matter.
“In [the Chinese city of] Wuhan (where the world's first COVID-19 outbreak was recorded in December 2019 – RBC ), it is not for nothing that scientists are studying blood samples from people infected in 2019. Judging by the phylogenetic tree, the virus appeared in September and not in China. Let scientists deal with this issue, and leave rumors and speculations to fortune-tellers, ”Popovich concluded.
The fact that the coronavirus could arise artificially, earlier in an interview with “Lente.ru” said the doctor of biological sciences and virologist Ancha Baranova. In her opinion, COVID-19 could have arisen as a result of an experiment that was supposed to lead, among other things, to the emergence of a vaccine that could “overtake” the virus. “This is called a function acquisition experiment,” the virologist explained.
