This Scientist Claims The Definitive Origin Of Covid 19 — ‘It’s In The Genetic Code’
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00:53Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app.Five years after the pandemic began, questions about the origins of COVID-19 remain hotly debated.In our episode today, we speak to a physician, scientist, and author of the new book, The Codeas Witness. He argues that the strongest evidence for the lab leak theory comes from the geneticcode of the virus itself. And a scandal like that should have huge implications for the scientificcommunity. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. And this is a weekend episodeof Morning Wire.here and your yard probably needs some love after winter. Our sponsor fast-growing trees is America's
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02:38Use wire to save today.Offer is valid for a limited time.Terms and conditions may apply.Joining us now to discuss the cluespointing to a lab origin found in the virus itselfis Dr. Stephen Quay.Dr. Quay, thanks for coming on.Well, it's a pleasure to be here, Georgia.
02:53So, Dr. Quay, it's been five yearssince the pandemic began,and most people have moved on,but you've actually written an entire book,that questions COVID origins and talks about why that still matters. Why did you choose that as the topicof your book? Well, I mean, I was looking at what was going on in 2020 and seeing two thingshappening at the same time. One was a representation of where the virus came from that didn't makesense scientifically. And then in a parallel fashion, the science establishment was really censoring
03:30people who had opinions. There wasn't the opportunity to debate, which is the foundation of science.So both of those drove me to write the book. And the third thing is that there may be anotherpandemic. It could be worse than the 1% SARS-CoV2. We need to be better prepared and we're not.Now, you've argued that the virus itself contains some clues that point to a lab origin.What is the strongest piece of evidence that you've seen that makes you feel like this viruscame from a lab leak? Well, it's looking at the virus and comparing it to thousands and thousands ofviruses we have from nature. So it has a particular site called the Furin site, which makes ithighly transmissible, not found in nature in this class of viruses. It has some unusual adaptations
04:19to the human tissue that are not seen in viruses in nature. Because in nature, viruses are livingin animals, you know, bats and other kinds of intermediate hosts.This virus was highly adapted for humans from the beginning.It's also the first respiratory virus that was ever transmitted asymptomatically.And I show that for five years, the one in the biology was studying how to make a virus that could transmit without giving symptoms.Those are the three primary foundations inside the genome that say that it came from a laboratory and was manipulated in that laboratory.When you say that it could be transmitted without symptoms, you mean in that prodrome phase before the symptoms arrive?So a new virus coming from nature is going to cause symptoms in 98, 99% of patients.
05:11The symptoms are fever, you know, sweating, red cheeks and the like, because it runs into what's called the innate immune system because it's not used to, you know, to being in humans.This virus was 40 to 50% asymptomatic in its patients.We missed that for a few months because we never expected it to be asymptomatic.And that was one of the two or three things that contributed most to making it a pandemic, a worldwide condition where it has infected probably every person on the planet.And you say there was evidence that they were working on making something exactly like that in the lab?Yes, there's a particular gene called an accessory gene.It has the fancy name of Orphate.I'm being facetious there.
05:55but orphate is responsible for suppressing the immune system so that the body doesn't react to it.On the front end of an infection, it makes it asymptomatic.And on the back end, it makes it hard to make antibodies against the virus.We've seen this virus, you know, affect people over and over again.And part of that is this protein called orphate that's actually suppressing the immune system at the end of an infection.Now, the title of your book that you often use, and it's a phrase in your book, is the code as witness.Can you just unpack that phrase a little bit?And what aspects of the virus are you referring to there?
06:33And it might be the aspects that you just discussed.Yeah, I mean, the title is to indicate that there's been a lot of what I would all call he said, she said evidence around where the virus came from.So we have virologists talking about that it came from a market publicly,and then through FOIA and other means, gotten access to their private statementswhere they say, guys, this could really have been engineered in a laboratory.I don't use that evidence.I use the evidence inside the virus itself because that's apoliticaland really is the best place to find the evidence.
07:11This virus has features that have never been seen in thousands and thousands of viruses fromnature. And those features are specifically the kind that have been used over the last 20 years to makeviruses more infective, infective in the laboratory. So it's circumstantial evidence, but much likefingerprints are circumstantial evidence. This points to a lab origin and a manipulation of thevirus in the lab. Now, how large are these gene sequences that you're referring to? Could some people say,oh, they just arose spontaneously or just mathematically, does that not make sense based on how largethere. Well, there are different sizes. So the fur and cleavage site, the thing that makes it sotransmissible, is 12 specific new letters in the virus that have never been seen in a thousand years
07:59in viruses from this class. The adaptation to humans is up to 100 different sites on the spikeprotein that are ideal for the human receptor, but not for the bat receptor, not for other hostreceptors. If it came from bats, would you see some evidence in its genome of where it historicallywould have favored latching onto bats? Well, yeah. So what you're describing are two exact incidents.So this is a coronavirus. And in 2014, we had a coronavirus epidemic. In 2003, we had a coronavirusepidemic. Both of those came directly from animals to humans. In one case,something called a civet cat in markets in China and the other from camels to humans in theMiddle East. And those viruses had the hallmarks of having been in respectively civet cats and
08:56camels. And so that kind of evidence is what you should see in a natural spillover, which arecompletely absent in SARS-CoV-2. Well, that brings me to the next question because some peoplewho disagree with you say the evidence does favor that natural spillover. Can you just explain a little bitwhat that term spillover means and then your response to that critique?Yeah, so let's back up a little and do a little biology training here.A zoonosis has the word zoo in it.It involves three entities, a human, an animal, and a virus, or perhaps a bacteria.If you hear about a new spillover in China, for example, or in Asia, it is eight to one
09:35likely that it's a natural event coming from nature versus a laboratory event,because that's the incidence that happened in Asia.And that's why I build the case that it's beyond a reasonable doubt that this came from a laboratory.Every year, there are, on average, eight natural spillovers from nature to humans that end up in the hospital or, you know, in a clinic that we can detect.And in that same time, every year, there's approximately one lab incident where someone in a laboratory gets infected.They go out into the world.They begin to infect other people.So it's eight to one in favor of nature.
10:11And that's your starting point.and that's a starting point in the book.But with the evidence, it actually flips so that it's greater than 95% likely it came from a laboratory.The flip side is, to be sure everyone understands that,that there are thousands of laboratory accidents around the world, you know, in the last decade, for example,where people have actually died from laboratory experiments they were conducting.So having an accident in a laboratory is actually not that rare,given the large number of laboratories doing this kind of work.
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11:40Get started today at Vanta.com slash morningwire. That's V-A-N-T-A-com slash morning wire.Now, looking back, when it comes to the largest failures with COVID that led to all those deaths,would you point the finger at science and sloppy lab work? Do you think it was a politicalissue, or do you think it was institutional, like the guard dog institutions failed in their position?Yeah, so, I mean, let's unpack it.that that's a complicated question. So the two features of the virus that were unexpected for thefrontline doctors, and had they known they would have acted differently, and had they acted differently,we would not have probably had a pandemic, is the rapid human to human spread and the fact that
12:28about half the infections are asymptomatic. I spoke before about eight natural zoonosis per yearin Asia, for example. When they happen, one person gets sick and maybe gets very sick andmaybe even dies, but because the pathogen, the virus is not adapted to humans, it doesn't go beyondthere. It very seldom infects another person at all. And so the frontline doctors, when this came out,were expecting a virus that yes, was going to be, you know, dangerous for the people who had it,but wasn't that transmissible. And having the fact that it clearly shows that 99% of itsrecognition site for the human ACE2 were pre-adapted, made it a highly humid to humanpathogen from the beginning. And then the other thing is, again, only 1% of viruses from nature
13:16are asymptomatic. And so none of our people expected that there was asymptomatic transmission,which would have changed how we treated, you know, airport surveillance or shutting downtravel and those kind of things. Yeah. Now, is gain of function research still happening? And if so,how should it be governed and how should it be managed?Yeah, I mean, I think it still is occurring.It's defined as changing the properties of a pathogen, a human pathogen, making it moreinfective, so it takes a smaller amount, making it more pathogenic or likely to kill youand the like.
13:51And it is going on now.And as part of the provisions that I suggest in the book is putting all of that underan independent, you know, national surveillance group, a research study group that would look at thisresearch and weigh whether it's expected to cause benefit or it's just too risky to do. Right now,the people who are funding the research and doing the research are part of the people whodecide whether the grants are appropriate or not. And that's, there's too much self-interest in thatcurrent cycle. Now, it's possible that a lot of the information was either hidden or destroyed, butif you or we were somehow able to gain access to 100% of the lab data, all of the correspondence,
14:37emails, internal records, et cetera, what do you think we would learn that still hasn't been exposedtoday?Well, I mean, I think the chain of custody on a natural virus that gets manipulated in a labin two or three ways, including, you know, a fear and cleavage site, including adaption to the ACE2,I think that if you had the laboratory no books, you would see the steady progress, probablytake six to 12 months to do those activities. So you'd see the steps along the way that led to all ofthat work. And that would probably blow the lid off of where this specific virus came from.Well, I think, you know, I've done an analysis because to remind, you know, your viewers,
15:17the techniques for manipulating coronaviruses were developed at the University of North Carolinaby a scientist called Ralph Berwick. And, you know, it really is very inventive and creativefundamental research that he did in terms of making consensus viruses, so growing virusesand couldn't grow before, being able to do reverse genetics in the laboratory so you canmanipulate them and make large quantities of them and doing seamless transmission so you canprevent the detection of the work itself.He called it the no-seum technology where you can't actually detect viruses being done.So all of the work was done in North America, but when you publish it becomes available to
15:57everyone in the world. My analysis was that given the location of the initial cases and the earlyspread and in the proximity of the cases in China, in Wuhan itself, that is the 70, 30, or 80, 20,likely location of the laboratory that did the work, the Wuhan Institute of Rology in Wuhan, China.All right. Well, Dr. Quay, thank you so much for coming on and explaining all of this to us.Thank you, Georgia.That was physician, scientist, and author, Dr. Stephen Quay, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if.
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