Flavinkins (@Flavinkins)

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/JVI.00790-20 This is not the only cell passage specific deletion that would end up in some of the very earliest patients. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/73/2/e437/5869859 DelQTQTN, a variant that emerges during VERO cell passage, is found specifically within at least 3 patients arriving from Wuhan in Guangdong, and variations at the “upstream probe binding site” (where closest related QTQTNS-bearing genomes contained only one transition at this probe, insufficient to prevent its binding), which also emerges at cell culture passage of SARS-CoV-2 in VERO cells, are found within patient samples taken from the Central Theater Command Hospital in Wuhan, alongside with variants that had deletions in the SPRRARS site, del-mut-1. DelQTQTN(which is specifically found within the patient samples and where the deletion is exactly 1AA longer than those claimed to be in RmYN02/RacCS203/Banal-247) and variations in the upstream probe binding sites are unique to VERO cell cultured strains of SARS-CoV-2. Their presence within the earliest patient samples within China implies that a VERO cultured stock was the proximal inoculum of many of the earliest patients within China. This directly point toward the proximal origin of the Chinese outbreak being associated with virology research and culturing of viruses.