Zhensheng just wanted to earn a good salary for his family. He had studied for many years and earned a doctorate in bioengineering. He was a loyal citizen and properly feared the state’s power.

They asked him to join a bioengineering project and he put aside ethical concerns knowing he could not resist, sabotage, or protest. What did he care anyway? If he didn’t do it, someone else would take the opportunity he could have seized.

He went about his duty without thinking about the consequences or questioning how the leaders were all crazy. Through mindfulness, he allowed no thought to enter his head about the obvious risks and what could go wrong given the qualities of the people involved and the madness of those requesting the effort.

It was fairly trivial to create a strategic virus. He took an existing virus and stitched a segment of HIV so its activity would attach more readily. Gradual mutations afforded it opportunity to evade detection and future vaccines by taking on inscrutable forms. This cleverness in design pleased his masters.

Although, the 4 inserts represent discontiguous short stretches of amino acids in spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV, the fact that all three of them share amino acid identity or similarity with HIV-1 gp120 and HIV-1 Gag (among all annotated virus proteins) suggests that this is not a random fortuitous finding. In other words, one may sporadically expect a fortuitous match for a stretch of 6-12 contiguous amino acid residues in an unrelated protein. However, it is unlikely that all 4 inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike glycoprotein fortuitously match with 2 key structural proteins of an unrelated virus (HIV-1).

Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag

Tweaking hemagglutinin esterase vexed normal immunity response by morphing into undetected forms and even lurking latently without showing symptoms, turning carriers into stealth spreaders. Those whose immune system had already had defeated an earlier form were forced to battle it again in a new form, drawing them into battle with an unknown foe. This attrition gradually wiped out medical staff responders and demoralized the population.

Those capable of rational reaction to the pandemic would take the most hits and become removed so the virus could run free. For a little while, Zhensheng was decently compensated for his bioengineering knowledge and each subsequent wave of mutation pulsed like an ocean picking off opportunistic targets.