This is what I figure based on personal experience, anecdotals accounts, and all this back and forth data...
At the initial release, COVID was real, and it was nasty, weird, and highly contagious.
As time went on, the virus started to mutate away from its lab-created potency. (Think of it like a purebred dog population left to interbreed in the wild.) This created branches of related strains that each showed some of, but not all, the aspects of the original strain. Some cause loss of smell, some cough, some diarrhea, etc. Some are more severe than others.
In the late stage, where we are now, COVID has now mostly regressed to a "wildtype" coronavirus, meaning that the various strain genomes have stabilized to a potency and virulence on par with non-engineered viruses.
This theory explains the greatly varied accounts of COVID symptoms and severity, and it suggests that this version of the virus was "rushed out" from the lab before the genome was fully stabilized.
This is what I figure based on personal experience, anecdotals accounts, and all this back and forth data...
At the initial release, COVID was real, and it was nasty, weird, and highly contagious.
As time went on, the virus started to mutate away from its lab-created potency. (Think of it like a purebred dog population left to interbreed in the wild.) This created branches of related strains that each showed some of, but not all, the aspects of the original strain. Some cause loss of smell, some cough, some diarrhea, etc. Some are more severe than others.
In the late stage, where we are now, COVID has now mostly regressed to a "wildtype" coronavirus, meaning that the various strain genomes have stabilized to a potency and virulence on par with non-engineered viruses.
This theory explains the greatly varied accounts of COVID symptoms and severity, and it suggests that this version of the virus was "rushed out" from the lab before the genome was fully stabilized.
ding ding ding