enriching for variants that would infect humans. So it doesn’t have to even be engineering

2-27-20    (at 16:45 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlplnH3VYyc)  “It’s more likely hat what they did was alter the virus.  So they found it in the wild and then they grew it in an animal host, say ferrets.  The reason why Dan asserts that it might be ferrets is because ferrets have an ACE2 receptor very homologous to humans.  So if you grew the virus in ferrets and then screened the viral titers* in those ferrets for novel viruses and you found one that infected these ferrets very well (17:29), you might also be enriching for variants that would infect humans.  So it doesn’t have to even be engineering, it could just as easily be that in the laboratory with lots of animals and lots of time and lots of technicians

they just screened viruses from the wild and screened viruses from generational culturing in other animal hosts—and they could have a whole  cabinet full of viruses that they’re studying, a whole cabinet full of novel coronaviruses with interesting properties.  Why would they do this, that’s the big question.  Well, Dan’s even nailed that part.  You can find patent applications filed in Germany for coronavirus vaccines already a year ago. (18:16)  …

  they’ve been doing gain-of-function research** in the US, Canada, Australia and China for about 10-15 years now (27:19).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlplnH3VYyc

* Viral load, also known as viral burden, viral titre or viral titer, is a numerical expression of the quantity of virus in a given volume. It is often expressed as viral particles, or infectious particles per mL depending on the type of assay.
** Gain-of-function (GOF) studies, or research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease