China’s military may be making a new human-infecting coronavirus deadlier than COVID-19
China caused the COVID-19 pandemic by artificially manipulating the structure of a natural bat coronavirus to make it infectious to humans.
It appears that China is now repeating that process with a far deadlier coronavirus.
There was much concern expressed in the international media recently about a potentially more transmissible and more lethal coronavirus called “NeoCoV,” described in a January 25, 2022, scientific article published by Chinese scientists from Wuhan University.
NeoCoV is a member of a group of coronaviruses, one of which caused the 2012 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak that killed 34% of the approximately 2,500 people it infected.
According to the Chinese authors, NeoCoV binds, not just to the bat DPP4 receptor found in most MERS coronaviruses, but also weakly binds to ACE2, which is the human receptor for the highly transmissible COVID-19 virus.
The Chinese scientists, at least one of which, Xiangxi Wang, has extensive links to China’s People’s Liberation Army, then proceeded to genetically engineer NeoCoV to increase its ability to infect humans.
Like the laboratory creation of COVID-19, Chinese scientists have again taken a coronavirus found in nature and artificially manipulated its structure to infect humans, but now with a virus capable of producing a 34% lethality rate compared to 1.6% for COVID-19.
NeoCoV is not a “new” virus, but was found in 2011 in Africa, and, therefore, is not an emerging disease threat to China.
It is becoming evident that China uses the threat of emerging viral diseases as a cover for its biowarfare program.
China appears to be using the same methodology for NeoCoV as was used in the laboratory creation of COVID-19.
From the beginning, COVID-19 appeared to be well-adapted, even “pre-adapted” for binding to human cells because it did not undergo the same mutation and adaptation to humans over time as did the SARS virus from the 2002-2004 pandemic. From the beginning, COVID-19 resembled a late-stage SARS-infection.
COVID-19 also binds to human cells 15-times better than the 2002-2004 SARS virus, which, unlike COVID-19, is believed to be a natural animal to human disease transmission.
What is far more disturbing and indicative of bioweapon development is the recent (January 2021) interest being shown by Chinese scientists in NeoCoV’s furin cleavage site.
Already in 2005, furin cleavage sites were known to increase both the transmissibility and pathogenicity of coronaviruses, including an ability to infect multiple human organ systems.
The increase in a coronavirus’ furin “score” is related to the number of basic amino acids in the sequence, as well as the three-dimensional structure and other chemical characteristics.
As a rule of thumb, however, two basic amino acids in the sequence are more effective than one and three are more effective than two.
What distinguishes COVID-19 from all the other bat coronaviruses from which it could have evolved are the multiple basic amino acids in its furin cleavage site.
COVID-19 has a five-times higher furin score than the 2002-2004 SARS virus, which has only a single basic amino acid in its furin cleavage site.
The artificial insertion of the furin polybasic cleavage site is the “smoking gun” evidence for the laboratory origin of COVID-19.
NeoCoV (Coronavirus Neoromicia/PML-PHE1/RSA/2011) has the lowest furin score within a group of similar coronaviruses.
No doubt, scientists in China’s fused military-civilian virus research program are conducting experiments to genetically-engineer a more effective furin cleavage site in NeoCoV and similar highly lethal coronaviruses.
Even without speculation, the information contained in the recently published Chinese NeoCoV article alone should be setting off alarm bells in the U.S. government and in the scientific community worldwide.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He had a civilian career in international business and medical research. His email address is lawrence.sellin@gmail.com.