Antibody test results of 2 Snohomish County residents throw into question timeline of coronavirus

[Igel]

14. No.

Not an epidemiologist, but I got 6 hours of sleep last night.


The genomic studies of the mutations of this thing shows that pretty much all the mutations available in Wuhan in January 2020 exist outside of Wuhan.

In additional, there are novel mutations. The distribution of the novel mutations show that they're relatively late. After the "out of Wuhan" date. It's all patch-work on top of layers of different slightly different varieties that comes with population mixing.

"Mutation" just means that there's a different amino acid at a given location in a protein or the RNA. A number of amino acids are pretty much functionally equivalent, so the change is pretty meaningless. It's not that the mutation gives it a new capability, any more than replacing a single nail with a wood screw makes a coffee table into a work bench.

The estimated date for when SARS-CoV-2 acquired its current form is years ago, based not so much on the data from the virus itself but comparing it with other related coronavirus. How long ago depends on what you think happened to get it from there to here. However, dating the time when this virus became unique before last October 2020 that doesn't mean that it had hopped to humans by then. I haven't seen (and haven't looked) to see if anybody's reconstructed the original "ur-virus" based just no SARS-CoV-2 mutations, but if nobody has some grad student should get right on that.