We're supposed to trust the experts, right?
Well, one of Australia's top vaccine scientists Nikolai Petrovsky claims that COVID-19's unique structure likely means that it is eather man-made or a "complete fluke" of nature.
And no… Petrovsky isn't random, whacko scientist.
Petrovsky is one of the top scientists in Australia. In fact, he is set to become one of the first scientists in the world to run a clinical trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine in humans.
A professor at Flinders University, Petrovsky had to deconstruct and study COVID-19's unique structure to find a potential vaccine.
So what exactly did he say?
It is almost perfectly human adapted, it couldn't do any better. 'We have to ask how that happened. Was it a complete fluke? It can be as nature has many shots at goal and you only see the ones that land.
Another possibility which still cannot be excluded is that SARS-CoV-2 was created by a recombination event that occurred inadvertently or consciously in a laboratory handling coronaviruses, with the new virus then accidentally released into the local human population.
This does not mean that COVID-19 is a bio-weapon.
Petrovsky's comments appear to suggest that the likeliest scenarios are that the virus was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke of nature or that it was created in a laboratory (either by mistake or intentionally) then leaked out into the population.
It's important to note that Petrovsky isn't making a claim one way or another.
He is simply trying to understand the truth so that he can help develop a vaccine that will work!
More details below:
The commonly accepted theory is that COVID-19 began in a wet market in Wuhan, China.
However, Petrovsky notes how the virus itself is "almost perfectly human adapted," which explains why it spreads so quickly.
In other words, Petrovsky appears to claim that the virus was optimized to spread throughout human populations from the very beginning, which is unusual for an evolving virus.
He also notes that no one has disproved the lab-escape theory.
According to The Daily Mail:
Coronavirus is so 'perfectly adapted' to infect humans that the possibility it was made in a Chinese lab can't be ignored, Australian vaccine researchers conclude.
Professor Nikolai Petrovsky said the virus was better at attaching itself to human cells than to any other animal, explaining why it has infected five million people.
The vaccine expert warned the investigation into where COVID-19 started, as proposed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was as a result urgently needed and should have begun months ago.
The startling results of his research were first revealed by the Mail on Sunday on the weekend - and on Wednesday his team gave Daily Mail Australia fresh details about why it must be considered a possibility the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan.
The team at Flinders University in Adelaide and Latrobe University in Melbourne studied how well SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infected different animals.
Coronavirus binds itself to the ACE2 receptor molecule in lung cells using a spike protein - the tighter it can attach itself, the less likely it is to be washed away and the sicker it makes its host.
Professor Petrovsky expected to find an animal that was most susceptible to this, such as bats, and was likely the original source of the virus - but was shocked when humans came out on top.
Furthermore, viruses tend to get better at infecting new species as they adapt over time, but COVID-19 started 'completely optimised from day one without the need to evolve'.
'This is a new virus that has never been in humans before, but it has an extraordinarily high binding to human receptors, which is very surprising,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
'It is almost perfectly human adapted, it couldn't do any better.
'We have to ask how that happened. Was it a complete fluke? It can be as nature has many shots at goal and you only see the ones that land.
'Another possibility which still cannot be excluded is that SARS-CoV-2 was created by a recombination event that occurred inadvertently or consciously in a laboratory handling coronaviruses, with the new virus then accidentally released into the local human population.'
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, a short trip from the city's wet markets, is the lab known to study several bat coronaviruses and is theorised to be where it was actually created.
Most scientists believe COVID-19 started naturally in an exotic animal market in Wuhan and was not man-made, and the WIV has rubbished claims it caused the outbreak.
However, Professor Petrovsky said no one had properly disproved the lab theory and his research showed it was plausible and there was just as little evidence for it to have naturally occurred.
Whether or not COVID-19 escaped from a lab or completely evolved in nature, it is clear that the communist Chinese government attempted to cover-up the outbreak.
Had the communist Chinese government allowed international scientists, researchers, and journalists into Wuhan as the crisis was beginning, the outbreak might have been contained.
This would have prevented the international pandemic.
But instead, the Chinese government appears to lie repeatedly about the pandemic, including the claim that human-to-human transmission was impossible.
It was a claim the World Health Organization would later blindly parrot.
What makes Petrovsky's comments so compelling is the fact that he isn't a random scientist or doctor.
He's one of the first researchers in the world (and likely the first in Australia) to run a clinical trial on a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
According to Pharmaceutical Technology:
Australian biotechnology company Vaxine has collaborated with South Korean biopharma firm Medytox for the development and commercialisation of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, COVAX-19.
COVAX-19 uses Vaxine’s Advax adjuvant technology in combination with a recombinant SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Currently, the vaccine candidate is undergoing late-stage animal studies in Australia, as well as the US.
[...]
Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky said: “It is wonderful to be working with such an experienced GMP manufacturing partner as Medytox to make our COVAX-19 vaccine available to as much of the world as possible.
“Korea is host to some of the most advanced pharma manufacturing companies in Asia, making this an ideal partnership.”
The companies intend to conduct Phase I clinical trials mid this year and early data should be available by August. Furthermore, Phase II/III trials are planned for the fourth quarter of this year, with product launch anticipated early next year.
Questioning the official narrative is not anti-science.
In fact, isn't science all about asking questions and then testing those theories?
Petrovsky isn't making any claims without evidence.
Rather, he's simply asking questions that deserve to be looked into and investigated.
He wants to understand the truth of what happened -- and that's what good science is all about!
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