New Research Appears to Confirm That Omi-Con Came From MICE, Indicating Likely Laboratory Origins
Scientists from several Chinese research institutions claim to have found evidence that the new Omicron (Moronic) variant of the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) may have come from mice, indicating possible laboratory origins.
This so-called mutation supposedly has 45 points that diverge from the B.1.1 lineage, which is different from the B.1.617.2 lineage of the Delta variant, which the media honed in on back in the summer and fall.
“We found that the Omicron spike protein sequence was subjected to stronger positive selection than that of any reported SARS-CoV-2 variants known to evolve persistently in human hosts, suggesting a possibility of host-jumping,” the scientists wrote in their paper.
“The molecular spectrum of mutations (i.e., the relative frequency of the 12 types of base substitutions) acquired by the progenitor of Omicron was significantly different from the spectrum for viruses that evolved in human patients, but resembled the spectra associated with virus evolution in a mouse cellular environment.”
They further found that the mutations inherent to the Moronic spike protein significantly overlap with SARS-CoV-2 mutation known to promote adaptation to mouse hosts. It has a particular affinity for the mouse cell entry receptor, they claim.
“Collectively, our results suggest that the progenitor of Omicron jumped from humans to mice, rapidly accumulated mutations conducive to infecting that host, then jumped back into humans, indicating an inter-species evolutionary trajectory for the Omicron outbreak,” the study further states.
