@R_H_Ebright comment sums it up nicely
The new viruses--named BANAL-20-52, BANAL-20-103, BANAL 20-236, BANAL 20-116, and BANAL 20-147--all are *less similar* than RaTG13 to SARS-CoV-02.
BANAL indeed.
But maybe not so BANAL after all...
From supplementary files
assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-87196…
quite a long way from Wuhan though, even further than Mojiang ;)
Limestone Karsts of SE Asia
researchgate.net/publication/21…
DISTRIBUTION AND CHARACTER OF KARST IN THE LAO PDR.
researchgate.net/publication/23…
Can someone break the news to Eddie Holmes gently?
"None of these bat viruses harbors a furin cleavage site in the spike"
"Identification of strains of animal origin with a furin cleavage site may require additional sampling"
researchsquare.com/article/rs-871…
More on Furin Cleavage Site
However, we found no furin site in any of these viruses. Lack of furin cleavage may be explained by by acquisition of the furin cleavage site through passages of the virus in an alternate host"
"Finally, where these intergenomic recombinations arose and the epidemiological link with the first human cases remains to be established"
US DoD and Pasteur Institute were there in Feuang District where the closest bat coronavirus, Banal 20 52, came from, back in 2017, bat sampling....where they sampled several Rhinolophus Malayanus...
pasteur.la/project-carrie…
Bat "contacts" tested in Vientiane Province in 2020
thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/…
Laos is the flavour of the day it seems...
PREDICT 2016
All cov sequences generated from frugivorous bats (family Pteropodidae) clustered with other bat βCoVs of lineage D, whereas one coronavirus from Pipistrellus coromandra fell in the lineage C of βCoVs which also includes the MERS-CoV.
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
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