The Canadian biologist Derrick Rossi, founder of the biotechnology company Moderna, immersed himself fully in the debate about the origin of the coronavirus that generated the current Covid-19 pandemic and said he was convinced that it came out of the BSL-4 laboratory of the Institute of Wuhan Virology.
// The most common symptoms post coronavirus vaccine
The scientist, who was awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for “exploiting his discovery about the ability to transform and reprogram pluripotent stem cells thanks to RNA-based technologies,” he told the Spanish newspaper Trade who does not believe in a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. “This virus is so different from bats that it seems unlikely to me that it was a natural leap. It is a fact that a laboratory in Wuhan worked with him and me I am convinced that it came out of there, that it escaped them. I don’t think it was deliberate, they were just studying it and there was an accident. China denies it, of course, but it is the explanation that I see as the most logical, “he said.
Rossi also considered that this pandemic “has been something exceptional”, although he warned that “there is no doubt that there will be more pathogens that jump to humans and cause disease. I hope we are more prepared for it ”.
Rossi, how ironically was vaccinated with serum from the Pfizer laboratory, said that “all vaccines are safe, and it has been shown that they help stop the pandemic.” He also said that due to the mutations experienced by viruses and the appearance of new variants “it may happen that the virus changes or becomes endemic, like the flu, and we have to vaccinate every one or two years” with booster doses.
On viruses, he said that they are “the most perfect evolutionary unit that exists. They know how to adapt to any inconvenience and this may be able to adapt to the vaccine ”. However, the scientist celebrated that “the good thing about messenger RNA technology (used by Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines) is that, quickly, we are able to adapt to it as well, so I’m optimistic,” he said.
“What cost us the most was build infrastructure to produce and distribute the vaccine, but that is being solved and every time we have greater capacity to reach the whole world, “he said.
// The Government has already closed the agreement for the CanSino and awaits a signature to bring the vaccines that it could use as second doses of Sputnik V
The origin of the pandemic
The American President, Joe Biden, last month ordered intelligence agencies to investigate the origin of the pandemic, including the theory of a laboratory leak.
The leak hypothesis had previously been raised during the global outbreak, including by then-President Donald Trump, but it was widely dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
However, it recently gained traction again, fueled by reports that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in 2019 after visiting a bat cave in southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
Some believe that SARS.-CoV-2 may be related to an investigation of gain from function, which consists of modifying pathogens to make them more transmissible, more deadly, or better able to evade treatment and vaccines, all to learn how to better combat them.
