In an interview with the Swiss online magazine Republik on June 5, Berlin virologist Christian Drosten, who is probably one of the world leading experts on SARS viruses, made some clear statements regarding the theory that the virus was accidentally or intentionally created in a lab.
While this would be within the realm of possibility from a purely technical standpoint, he also said that, “I know the techniques needed to change a virus in that way very well. If someone had developed SARS-2 that way, I’d say they did it in a pretty awkward way.” On the basis of the first SARS virus, one would have to change only very specific areas of the genome or to add what is known as the furin cleavage site, in order to find out whether such an adaptation would render the virus more infectious. “But the whole backbone of SARS-CoV-2 is completely different. It is full of deviations from the first virus,” he said.
“Let me explain it with a picture: To check, say, whether adaptations make the virus more contagious, I would take an existing system, put the change in there, and then compare that to the old system,” Drosden explained. “If I want to know if a new car radio improves the sound, I take an existing car and change the radio there. Then I compare. I don’t build a completely new car for that. But that’s exactly how it was with SARS-2: The whole car is different.”
