Third, the excess amino-acid mutations in Omicron’s spike are concentrated in positions strongly targeted by human neutralizing antibodies. Many mutations in RBD, and within RBD they are at key antigenic positions (417, 446, 484, etc).
That looks like what I would expect if Omicron came out of the gain-of-functions experiments to see how easy it is for COVID to mutate against the human neutralizing antibodies.
Also, engineering of spike for antibody escape would not explain how Omicron also ended up with “normal” number of new mutations elsewhere in genome.
I don’t understand that point at all. Of course, you would also see other mutations in an experiment to see whether the virus manages to escape from a highly neutralizing COVID-19 convalescent plasma.
I don’t think the case is that strong.
That looks like what I would expect if Omicron came out of the gain-of-functions experiments to see how easy it is for COVID to mutate against the human neutralizing antibodies.
I don’t understand that point at all. Of course, you would also see other mutations in an experiment to see whether the virus manages to escape from a highly neutralizing COVID-19 convalescent plasma.