Origin of COVID-19: Dismissing the Mojiang mine theory and the laboratory accident narrative

Abstract

The origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still the subject of a controversial debate. The natural origin theory is confronted to the laboratory leak theory. The latter is composite and comprises contradictory theories, one being the leak of a naturally occurring virus and the other the leak of a genetically engineered virus. The laboratory leak theory is essentially based on a publication by Rahalkar and Bahulikar in 2020 linking SARS-CoV-2 to the Mojiang mine incident in 2012 during which six miners fell sick and three died. We analyzed the clinical reports. The diagnosis is not that of COVID-19 or SARS. SARS-CoV-2 was not present in the Mojiang mine. We also bring arguments against the laboratory leak narrative.

Keywords: COVID-19; Clinical diagnosis; Mojiang mine; Origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Fig. 1

Phylogenetic analysis of the spike genes used for genetic engineering. The genes used for genetic engineering are those described in the NIH Grant 1RO1 Al 110,964–01 (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21055989-understanding-risk-bat-coronavirus-emergence-grant-notice), i.e. WV1, WV16, SHC014 and Rs4231. The spike protein gene of MERS-CoV was used as outgroup to root the tree. Sequences were aligned using MUSCLE in the SeaView package (Gouy et al., 2010). The phylogenetic tree was built using the maximum likelihood method with GTR-G-I evolutionary model and 500 bootstrap repeats.