Zoonosis or Lab-leak?

By Teo Jacobsen

Where did the virus that caused the pandemic come from? what was the source This has been a hot topic throughout the pandemic and explanations have changed over time. What should we believe and which explanation is valid?

There are two official hypotheses and one alternative hypothesis:

1. "Zoonosis." Also known as the wet market hypothesis: An animal virus infects a host of another species, spreads around the world and persists for 3 years. Supposed cause of Sars-Cov 2.

2. "Gain of Function" - Laboratory accident, called a conspiracy theory at the beginning of the pandemic and debunked countless times, including by virologist Vincent Racaniello, who runs the podcast and YouTube channel "TWIV" (This Week in Virology). There's a reason I mention Racaniello here, because he actually makes a good case for GoF being unlikely. At least the kind that's been sold to us as a conspiracy theory. More on Racaniello later. The GoF states that an accidental incident happened in a lab and the infection spread around the world and lasted for 3 years. What must have preceded this is never discussed. GoF was officially discredited, but is now actively promoted by some circles, both official and dissident. The latter group tends to have good finances and travel the world to give lectures.

3. The "No Virus" Theory: There are no viruses, a theory defended by some doctors and other personalities. They have quite a number of followers, and some of them believe that something called exosomes exists.

Exosomes are carriers of communication between cells and between humans or animals. The No-Virus supporters didn't invent this. Research into exosomes attracts billions of dollars in research capital, and research into exosomes holds great promise for use in cancer treatment.

Jonathan Jay Couey

Microbiologist, researcher, and father of young children, Jonathan Jay Couey PhD, has spent a great deal of time studying the hypotheses. Couey's involuntary journey of knowledge began with his desire to understand what triggered the February 2020 pandemic.

A few months ago, Couey made some discoveries that caused him to reconsider what he had believed since the pandemic began. namely that the virus was a result of Gain of Function (GoF).

Couey's career

At the age of 21, Couey began his career in 1998 as a substitute teacher at the Chicago Public Schools. Over the next 20 years, until 2021, he transitioned from laboratory technician to university-level teacher in countries around the world, including the Netherlands and Norway, Switzerland, and the United States.

He met his wife while studying in the Netherlands. They later moved to Trondheim, where Couey worked at NTNU for 4 years. Under the direction of the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian doctors, the researcher couple Edvard and May-Britt Moser, he further developed his techniques in their laboratory. Couey and his wife gave birth to their first child in Norway.

After a brief stay in the Netherlands from 2016, Couey continued to work as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Pittsburgh, PA. On his bike rides home from work, he began producing instructional videos based on his own research.

Until 2021 he was a member of the Research Faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Eventually, Couey was fired because he couldn't hide his frustration with his colleagues for not being interested in listening to what he was trying to teach about biology and the faculty's obligation to wear masks.

Couey´s Youtube-channel JC On a Bike in 2020:

He and his wife had to sell the house and find a cheaper one. From his home office in their new house, he is now interviewing doctors and researchers from all over the world to get to the bottom of what is happening. The family survives thanks to the sponsorship of its loyal followers.

Couey and the research network DRASTIC

Couey was approached at home by a person claiming to be connected to the military, who invited Couey to join the Drastic research network.

DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19) was founded in 2020 by anonymous internet activist Billy Bostickson, whose members have never met in person. Those who joined this network were supporters of the theory that what had happened was a result of the GoF. The group has followed this trail to this day.

A particularly active member of "Drastic" is a microbiologist living in Japan. He claimed the virus would kill a billion people and has not significantly deviated from that position.

Couey is no longer as active on the Drastic network as he says they are conspicuously reluctant to discuss his findings, despite the solid documentation he eventually provides to the group.

New network:

Couey has built up a larger network of mathematicians, statisticians, physicians and computer scientists who meet at irregular intervals in live streams on various internet platforms. By examining the basis of what they perceive to be established knowledge in certain areas of virology related to the coronavirus, they suspect that the statement by established virologists and leading members of Drastic is built on an uncertain foundation.

Jonathan Jay Couey, through his contacts, has collected thousands of documents that give rise to a fourth theory about what might have caused the pandemic.

After 2 years of collaboration and regular meetings with Drastic, Couey became aware that there is no documentation that the coronavirus has pandemic potential. There's no research showing the coronavirus can be cultured, Couey says. On the other hand, according to recognized research results, he found that the coronavirus, which is an RNA virus, produces so many errors that it would quickly lose its pathogenic effect, if such an effect were real at all. Virus replication in cells occurs through RNA replication. RNA replication produces errors every 300 base pairs, so most that are shed by an infected person are what are known as replication incompetents virus fragments. You are not contagious. A single delivery point (e.g. Wuhan) therefore cannot explain a three-year pandemic, Couey believes. Certain members of Drastic are now attempting to push Couey into the corner of the "No-Virus" group. Couey believes this is an attempt to discredit him. But Couey believes he and the "No Virus" supporters should be able to find some common ground and has tried to win them over. More on that later.

Jonathan Jay Couey has located over 1,000 research articles demonstrating that over the past 30 years, the techniques of enriching pathogenic viral sequences of approximately 3-500, maybe even up to 1000 base pairs have been mastered in viral laboratories around the world and practiced successfully. The developers of this technology were virologists Vincent Racaniello and David Baltimore, who in 1981 managed to create cDNA clones of the polio virus. (Link to Open Clubhouse Discussion LIVE). This cDNA cloning thing, oddly enough, wasn't a topic in any of the many TVIW episodes I watched with Racaniello in the first year of the pandemic while everyone was wondering where Sars-Cov 2 came from. That tells me Couey might be on the right track. Couey himself sees Vincent Racaniello as a kind of goalkeeper. If you visit TVIW on youtube it might be interesting to watch episode 615. It was recorded in autumn 2019, i.e. before the pandemic, but did not come out until spring 2020. Normally these episodes are produced weekly. I suspect Episode 615 was the subject of much discussion before it was released on YouTube.

An alternative explanatory model for the coronavirus pandemic

Couey says there's no evidence in the scientific literature that they've managed to grow the coronavirus in a lab. Coronaviruses are complex entities made up of approximately 30,000 base pairs and are extremely difficult to work with and study.

On the other hand, there is good evidence for the accumulation of pathogenic virus fragments: cDNA cloning occurs through DNA replication in a bacterial culture and is used in laboratories worldwide. DNA replication produces two orders of magnitude less errors than RNA replication and allows the production of highly enriched pathogen clones. It's this material that labs send each other when researching pathogenic viruses, Couey says. The method enables the production and release of pure clones capable of causing local outbreaks of disease. Large amounts of cDNA clones can be produced in this way, theoretically a whole truck tank load is possible. Along with PCR tests that test for both specific elements in the clones and conserved (stable) elements in common coronaviruses, Couey believes it created an illusion that we had a pandemic as portrayed in the media.

A more likely explanatory model than the coronavirus pandemic is that coordinated releases of disease-causing cDNA clones occurred in multiple locations around the world, Couey claims. Even if the clones do cause disease in those exposed to it (the release was most likely aerosolized), they are not particularly contagious because RNA replication in the infected person produces too many errors to pass many limbs. Issues in Wuhan, Iran, New York and in the state of Washington are conceivable. That, along with the fact that influenza viruses were disappearing from the face of the earth around the same time Sars-Cov-2 entered the arena, may have been misconstrued as a coronavirus outbreak, Couey believes.

Couey and the "No-Virus" supporters

The description of what exosomes are is very reminiscent of viruses. It's paradoxical. And so Couey has tried to win over the "No Virus" supporters and live-streamed with some of them.

Couey finds it strange that leading no-virus proponents demand concrete evidence for the existence of viruses, but are far more uncritical with evidence of their own hypotheses.

The leaders of the no-virus group believe Couey is on the wrong side, even though what he finds doesn't fall into either the "virus" or "no-virus" groups. Couey tries to bring the camps together and often expresses his frustration to both.

Information I recommend reading further:

Couey puts the puzzle together piece by piece, updating what he finds in a 65MB PDF, richly illustrated and available to download for free. You can find it on his homepage Gigaohm Biological under «Brief». The PDF also includes Couey's mention of several famous figures in the Covid universe, well worth a look!