Day 128: Stabbed in the Back by the Spike Protein

The world is at seven million cases with 406,000 deaths and about 3.5 million recovered. The US has reached two million cases with 112,000 deaths. While India has legitimately surpassed Italy to reach #6, it is still well in the lee of #4 Spain despite the usual rash of reports to the contrary. The UK, however, is looking to move up from #5 momentarily. Massachusetts cases are up 0.3% on the eve of Phase 2 of the state's reopening plan.

On the made-in-a-lab front, Forbes has published a Norwegian scientist's claims that SARS-CoV-2 was so made in a lab, and the Quarterly Review of Biophysics has accepted the article behind his claims, A Candidate Vaccine for Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Developed from Analysis of its General Method of Action for Infectivity. Although the paper is nominally about their vaccine (Biovacc-19), the authors' approach relies upon their view of the virus as genetically engineered:

Although no other Covid-19 vaccine design programme appears to follow this methodology, we believe, from experience, that successful vaccine design logically starts with a thorough understanding of the aetiology of the target virus which appears in this case to be quite singular. In consequence of our researches and therefore unlike conventionally developed vaccines, Biovacc-19's Method of Operation is solely upon non human-like (NHL) epitopes which are 21.6% of the composition of this coronavirus's Spike protein.

Interestingly, their approach was honed not on the dark web of COVID conspiracy theories, but in the trenches of HIV vaccine development:

It is thirty six years since the world was promised an HIV vaccine that would be ready in eighteen months. We correctly predicted the failure of all three major HIV/AIDS vaccines over those years, and specifically the danger of poor immune responses to conserved human-like domains and antibody- enhanced infectivity to high mutating domains. Earlier this year, the latest South African trial was terminated due to futility in preventing HIV transmission (UNAIDS, 2020). From our past HIV experience, we therefore observe that in the present context, any vaccine design based on the whole Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 may not be immunogenic due its high human similarity compared to a vaccine with specifically selected NHL epitopes, such as Biovacc-19 does - and is.

Covid-19 candidate vaccines designed without appreciating these problems may run similar risks to those experienced with HIV vaccines that failed to show protection. The possibility of inducing autoimmune responses or antibody-dependent enhancements, needs to be carefully guarded against because there is published evidence that an HIV candidate vaccine has actually enhanced infectivity (Duerr et al., 2012): "Vaccinations were halted; participants were unblinded. In post hoc analyses, more HIV infections occurred in vaccinees vs placebo recipients in men who had Ad5-neutralizing antibodies and/or were uncircumcised. Follow-up was extended to assess relative risk of HIV acquisition in vaccinees vs placebo recipients over time”. Such antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) has been observed for coronaviruses in animal models, allowing them to enter cells expressing Fc𝛾R.

For specific accusations against the US and China for their gain-of-function viral research, you have to go back to the Forbes article. (This is left as an exercise for the reader.)

The PlagueBlog files contain another recent discussion of the stabby alien spike protein of SARS-CoV-19, the preprint The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 by an unusual genome reconstitution at Research Square. The authors found an unusual 7-amino-acid (7aa) sequence within the spike protein that they felt was unnatural, but instead of making accusations in Forbes they BLASTed it a lot until they found a matching sequence in Plasmodium malariae, the malaria parasite.

Crazier than made-in-a-lab though that may sound, the authors take it seriously. They conclude with some interesting speculation about using malaria drugs against COVID-19, and note yet another pattern distinguishing hard-hit Western countries with those places that are getting off easier: malaria prevalence.