Thread by @quay_dr

I agree this is not an example of codon optimization for the same reason; it is done over a larger region.

But natural selection in betacoronaviruses has NEVER produced a -CGG-CGG- dimer codon pair. Repeating: there has never been this codon dimer in a coronavirus from nature.

https://twitter.com/phylogenomics/status/1374030684520517642

So after scanning 580,000 betacoronavirus codons you suddenly have a -CGG-CGG- cannot be waved away with the 'sh#@' happens hypothesis. Remember, codons have a matching tRNA so putting the two rarest codons together is going to slow/stall transcription.

So we have a functional furin site that has never been seen in a betacoronavirus before that is coded for by a codon dimer that has never been seen before.

And WIV routinely puts furin sites into coronaviruses that don't have them...before lunch...and they use whatever codons they want...including CGG

Everything I have said are provable facts. Unless you can show me one recombination in nature generating a furin site...and one example of the CGG dimer in nature...there is no path for getting these properties from the wild.

Factless speculation about theories is not how science is done. You gather facts and then make conclusions, not the other wat around.

Sorry, I am not picking on you but I am frustrated when so many people just brush off the facts, the science, of what is going on.

Prove me wrong, PLEASE (it would be so much easier if this did NOT come from the WIV).

But use facts from the literature