Famous Norwegian HIV Immunologist: The most logical explanation is that COVID19 comes from a laboratory

Welp...

Here's the real kicker:

“The properties that we now see in the virus, we have yet to discover anywhere in nature. We know that these properties make the virus very infectious, so if it came from nature, there should also be many animals infected with this, but we have still not been able to trace the virus in nature.

“The only place we are aware of where an equivalent virus to that which causes Covid-19 exists, is in a laboratory. So the simplest and most logical explanation is that it comes from a laboratory. Those who claim otherwise, have the burden of proof,” Sørensen says.

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The most logical explanation is that it comes from a laboratory
The well-known Norwegian virologist Birger Sørensen and his colleagues have examined the corona virus. They believe it has certain properties which would not evolve naturally. These conclusions are politically controversial, but in this interview he shares the findings behind the headlines.

Aksel Fridstrøm
NYHETSREDAKTØR

Nils August Andresen
ANSVARLIG REDAKTØR
PUBLISERT Torsdag 02. juli 2020 - 19:10 SIST OPPDATERT Torsdag 02. juli 2020 - 22:24
“I understand that this is controversial, but the public has a legitimate need to know, and it is important that it is possible to freely discuss alternate hypotheses on how the virus originated” Birger Sørensen starts to explain when Minerva visits him in his office one morning in Oslo.

Despite the explosiveness of his statements and research, Sørensen remains calm and collected.

Sørensen has been a point of controversy ever since former MI6 director Richard Dearlove cited a yet to be published article by Sørensen and his colleagues in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. The article claims that the virus that causes Covid-19 most likely has not emerged naturally.

“It’s a shame that there has already been so much talk about this, because I have yet to publish the article where I put forward my analysis”, Sørensen says in the form of an exasperated sigh.

Together with his colleagues, Angus Dalgleish and Andres Susrud have authored an article that looks into the most plausible explanations regarding the origins of the novel coronavirus. The article builds upon an already published article in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics that describes newly discovered properties in the virus spike protein. The authors are still in dialogue with scientific journals regarding an upcoming publication of the article.

News outlets are thus confronted with a difficult question: Are the findings and arguments Sørensen and his colleagues put forward of a sufficiently high quality to be presented and discussed in the public sphere? Sørensen explains that they in their dialogue with scientific journals are encountering a certain reluctance to publishing the article – without, however, proper scientific objections. Minerva has read a draft of the article, and has after an overall assessment decided that the findings and arguments do deserve public debate, and that this discussion cannot depend entirely on the publication process of scientific journals.

In this interview with Minerva, Sørensen therefore puts forward his hypothesis on why it is highly unlikely that the coronavirus emerged naturally.

On May 18th, WHO decided to conduct an inquiry into the coronavirus epidemic in China. Sørensen believes that it is important that this inquiry looks into new and alternate explanations for how the virus originated, beyond the already well-known suggestion that the virus originated in the Wuhan Seafood Market.

“There are very few who still believe that the epidemic started there, so as of today we have no good answers on how the epidemic started. Then we must also dare to look at more controversial, alternative explanations for the origin,” Sørensen says.

Birger Sørensen and one of his co-authors, Angus Dalgleish, are already known as HIV researchers par excellence.

In 2008, Sørensen’s work came to international attention when he launched a new immunotherapy for HIV. Angus Dalgleish is the professor at St. George’s Medical School in London who became world famous in 1984 after having discovered a novel receptor that the HIV virus uses to enter human cells.

The purpose of the work Sørensen and his colleagues have done on the novel coronavirus, has been to produce a vaccine. And they have taken their experience in trialling HIV vaccines with them to analyse the coronavirus more thoroughly, in order to make a vaccine that can protect against Covid-19 without major side effects.

Exceptionally well adjusted
“The difference between our approach and other vaccine manufacturers is that we have a chemistry background, and we analyse the virus in detail as if we were making a drug,” Sørensen starts to explain.

“Biology is also chemistry, so by considering the virus from a chemistry perspective, we carry out more detailed analysis, zooming in on certain components.”

Sørensen takes us through the basic elements of their approach:

“The first thing you need to establish is which parts of the virus are changing, and which parts are stable. If you want to make a vaccine that lasts, you must stimulate the immune system to react against those parts of the virus that are constant, otherwise the effect will disappear and, in the worst-case scenario, lead to increased illness.

“Once we know this, we can try to make a vaccine. Where we differ is that we are trying to make a vaccine that uses elements that have as little in common with the body’s natural components as possible, so that the immune system is taught to recognise exactly what the vaccine should protect against”, Sørensen elaborates.

Sørensen believes this is an important insight which will prevent the immune system from being falsely stimulated in a way that could lead the vaccine to create too many dangerous side effects in the vaccinated person.

“When we have not succeeded in creating an HIV vaccine, despite the enormous efforts put into that endeavour for the past 30 years, it is because we haven’t understood this,” Sørensen continues.

He believes that there has not been enough interaction between the part of the pharmaceutical industry that makes HIV medicines and the part that runs the vaccine research. As a consequence, the knowledge you need to make a successful vaccine against HIV in the big pharmaceutical companies has not been adequately exploited by the big, international HIV preventing vaccine studies that have been carried out.”

Asked about what significance his approached has had when he has analyzed the coronavirus, Sørensen explains:

“We have examined which components of the virus are especially well suited to attach themselves to cells in humans. And we have done this by comparing the properties of the virus with human genetics. What we found was that this virus was exceptionally well adjusted to infect humans.”

He pauses for a second.

“So well that it was suspicious,” he adds.

Perfected to infect humans
It is already known that the novel coronavirus, like the virus that caused the SARS epidemic in Southeast Asia in 2002-2003, could attach itself to the ACE-2 receptors in the lower respiratory tract.

“But what we have discovered is that there are properties in this new virus which enables it to use an additional receptor, and create a binding to human cells in the upper respiratory tract and the intestines which is strong enough to produce an infection,” Sørensen elaborates.

Sørensen says that it is the use of this additional receptor that most likely results in a different illness in Covid-19 patients than the one resulting from SARS.

“This is what enables the virus to transmit to a greater degree between humans, without the virus having attached itself to the ACE-2 receptors in the lower respiratory tract, where it causes deep pneumonia.

“That is also why so many of the Covid-19 patients have mild symptoms at the start of the illness, and are contagious before they develop severe symptoms,” he adds.

It might also explain why some people are ‘super spreaders’ without being ill themselves, Sørensen says.

In the already published article Sørensen and his colleagues Angus Dalgleish and Andres Susrud describe what they claim is curious about the spike protein of the coronavirus, which makes it especially well suited to infect humans. These findings are the foundation for the hypothesis Sørensen and his colleagues develop in the new article, where they claim that the virus is not natural in origin.

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Last Edited by Alchemike on 07/05/2020 10:21 PM