The remarkable similarities between a recently leaked 2018 proposal from EcoHealth Alliance head Peter Daszak and the defining characteristics of COVID-19 raise new questions regarding the origins of the pandemic.The proposal, dated March 27, 2018, sets out the organization's plan to create entirely new coronaviruses through the synthetic combination of preexisting virus backbones. It describes how those viruses were going to be made more virulent in humans by the insertion of a furin cleavage site, a feature that distinguishes COVID-19 from all other SARS-related coronaviruses.
The plan also envisaged the creation of an aerosolized vaccine that could be used to immunize wild bat populations.
But it turned out to not affect bats. Unexpectedly.
Daszak's proposal, which was leaked by a whistleblower to DRASTIC, an online community of researchers investigating the origins of the pandemic, has since been authenticated by Linfa Wang, one of the scientists who was involved in Daszak's proposal.
While it isn't known whether Daszak's proposal was realized, there are a number of indications that it was, including a distinct overlap between his proposal and work being carried out by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The new revelations contained in Daszak's proposal will likely have far-reaching implications as to the ongoing search of the virus's origins.