Experts have suspected the SARS-CoV-2 virus similarly originated in bats. Researchers in
China — including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — have said the virus shares 96% of its genome with a bat virus
collected by researchers in 2013 in Yunnan Province, China. (While that’s quite similar,
Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa who studies coronaviruses and a pediatric infectious disease physician, told us it would be “impossible” to take such a virus and make the kind of changes required to turn it into SARS-CoV-2 in a lab. One would need a virus that’s 99.9% similar, and “in theory it might work.”)
A disagreement between Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci has put $600,000 of U.S. grant money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology back into the spotlight, while making "gain-of-function" research a household term -- all amid calls for more investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
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