A Short Historic Reference

COVID-19 Pandemic has started in December 2019 (at least, officially) in Wuhan, China. It was caused by a specific strain of coronavirus which was later called SARS-CoV-2. Unlike the vast majority of coronaviruses which cause common colds, SARS-CoV-2 was a rather unpleasant variant: it was causing irritating cough, loss of smell and taste, breathing difficulties, and other - sometimes lethally unpleasant - symptoms.

When SARS-CoV-2 first appeared and started to spread, it was not entirely clear what was its basic reproduction number, which meant a lot of uncertainty about whether this epidemic had the capacity to kill a significant fraction of the population. Many governments tried to play it safe and stem the rate at which people got infected by limiting contact between the people and by using various somewhat unhelpful measures like face masks. That, combined with many people being unwell, has resulted in a negative impact on the economy.

In time, the virus has evolved into less lethal forms (as almost all viruses eventually do) and now nobody cares much about it. After all, its symptoms are now rather similar to influenza or just a bad common cold.

Causality does not Exist

Early in our life, human beings learn about causality. Mother’s hugs result in warmth, touching a hot pan leads to pain, and sticking two fingers into a European power socket leads to a severe electric shock — that kind of thing. Of course, sometimes mistakes are made. Some believe that one needs to sacrifice a goat to end a drought, but that is an exception to the rule. Nobody would seriously claim that a fault in a car engine is a result of the price of a sandwich. Or so you’d expect. Alas, there are situations where causality does not exist, and COVID-19 is a good example.

• Was it a coronavirus? Check.
• Did it originate in Wuhan, China? Check.
• How many bio-laboratories are there in the world which match Biosafety Level 4 standards? Around 50.
• Is one of them in Wuhan? Check.
• Is there a genetic similarity between COVID-19 coronaviruses of pangolins? Check.
• Is there a genetic similarity between COVID-19 and coronaviruses of bats? Check.
• Was a gain-of-function research performed for ears in the US and other countries? Check.
• Were bat coronaviruses considered in this context at least as early as 2015? Check.
• Was there already a pause on all gain-of-function studies introduced by the US government? Check.
• Does the name of certain Zhengli-Li Shi feature in relation to gain-of-function and coronaviruses many years before the epidemic? Check.
• Does she direct the aforementioned Wuhan Institute of Virology? Check.

So the origin of COVID-19 is… definitely not the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is definitely not a half-a**d bioweapon or a result of a poorly conducted experiment on creating a chimeric virus which contains RNA fragments from coronaviruses commonly circulating in populations of humans, bats, and pangolins.

In fact, the source of COVID-19 is… a wet market in Wuhan. I can totally believe — and you ought to as well — that someone likely suffering from a common cold has bought an infected pangolin and an infected bat, ate the infected bat’s raw mean, did something unnatural to the corpse of an infected pangolin, and in doing so ended up with a chimeric virus in his or her body. This is definitely plausible. There is nothing else to look for. Anyone who believes otherwise, possesses common sense, and relies on causality is, of course, a conspiracy theorist.

COVID was too Easy

All in all, COVID-19 was easy, relatively speaking. Yes, it was bad. Yes, there were lethal cases. But it was not anywhere close to Spanish flu.

When the first news of the epidemic surfaced and I heard the keywords “Wuhan” and “coronavirus”, I “did the math”. In a couple of days, I have prepared for it: got myself a positive pressure respirator with filters suitable for protection against biological threats, chemicals for decontamination, and suitable overall. I have decided on the safety protocols to follow and have tested what was possible to test. It was not a perfect kind of protection, but it was as perfect as you could get without access to military-grade equipment and facilities.

It’s not to say it was easy for everyone.

Doctors and nurses were hit hardest. Nobody cared or could supply them with proper protection — you would not seriously consider face masks a suitable PPE, would you — and sadly many of them have died.

People of other professions where interactions with people is inevitable, or where they must work in the office did not have it easy as well.

However, after a couple of years, the dust has settled, and we can say that the damage was not truly catastrophic. So given how underwhelming COVID-19 was — despite the expectations of many — as an extinction-level factor, it seems interesting to consider what might be a more capable alternative. Hm…

Nuclear war is a scarecrow for the West. People love to say that Mutually Assured Destruction is just “MAD”, but they are blind to the simple fact that it is so only in English. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union and modern RussiaMoscovia people composed songs dedicated to nuclear arsenals and the destruction they could unleash. I have no idea about the situation in China, Iran, and North Korea, but I doubt that they would be terribly scared of pushing the button when the time comes. If they are not scared of the “nuclear holocaust”, could it be not as bad as it is painted for the naïve Europe and the USA? And of course that is the case. While the casualties and misery would no doubt be massive, there will be survivors. It will not be the end.

Could it be a diabolically nasty disease like the mutated cordyceps as it was imagined in The Last of Us, or the virus from 12 Monkeys? That would have been bad, but diseases tend to collapse when the number of potential hosts collapses significantly. The transmission rates fall, and eventually, the infection can no longer effectively get to the remaining hosts.

A.I.?

Yes, but only when a capable General A.I. is created and turned into an agent. However, even then there is a chance that someone will spot it in time and put a stop to its activities. G.A.I. agents are not a certain thing.

So what could be a realistic extinction event with a pretty much 100% certainty of wiping out all of us and that cannot possibly be stopped?

The Proper Extinction

I might be wrong, but there appears to be a very good candidate already, and it goes under the name of “mirror life”.

The majority of organic molecules can have a mirrored form. This property is called “chirality”. Molecules can spontaneously switch from left-handed to right-handed form and back. More than that, a single molecule can have multiple chirality centres.

Nevertheless, from a practical point of view, the chirality of most of the molecules is rather specific. This is because for live organisms chirality matters. They can consume only molecules with the correct “handedness” and somewhat oversimplifying it, once the molecule is a part of an organism, its chirality tends to stay stable.

The idea of a mirror life is that had the chirality of all molecules in an organism flipped, the organism would have continued to live. However, it would have become incompatible with the vast majority of organic molecules. Some believe, that artificial mirror life can be rather useful and profitable. They also believe that it is safe: after all, they cannot consume most of the mirror molecules.

The reality, of course, will likely be catastrophic.

Suppose a mirror life bacterium, even an exceptionally simple one, breaks out of containment. The bacterium would have a pretty hard life: it would be hard for it to find suitable nutrients. However, it will not be impossible. This will likely mean, that the mirror life will not die. It will proliferate, even if that proliferation is going to be slow initially. This necessity to live slowly is not a critical problem for bacteria. On the upside, no existing viruses will have the ability to threaten the bacterium. They will be absolutely incapable of hijacking its organic machinery, just like a mirrored key cannot open a normal lock. The result of that will be a potentially slow, yet exponential growth. And note, that even a single escape bacterium can lead to this.

OK. So what would be the end result? Would it be just another disease?

Well… Certainly not. Due to the fact that these bacteria have an unnatural chirality, a normal immune response to them will not be possible. It is true not only in the case of humans but also of pretty much every other living being on the planet. From a practical point of view, if at least a single mirror life bacterium enters your body, there is no way to get rid of it, and it will proliferate, competing with the rest of your body for nutrients. Note, that it does not matter that most of their bulk is not of the correct chirality: from time to time, molecules leave the structured micro-worlds of the host’s cells and then occasionally change their chirality, which provides an opportunity to sweep them in. And so the population of mirror life bacteria would grow like cancerous tissue. Except it won’t be localised in any specific place. It will be all over the body, gradually replacing normal cells with hordes of its own replicas, bit by bit turning the body into an oozy slimy goo.

For the new kings of the planet, the best places to live would always be still-living organisms. And so they will spread and consume from inside everything that is larger than a single cell, essentially wiping out macroscopic life. And then, for a time, there will be an unequal competition between unicellular life forms. It will be unequal because the new life has no threats in the form of viruses. So it will quickly become the dominant form.

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but perhaps after millions of years viruses for the mirror-life bacteria will emerge, partially levelling up the playing field. It is also conceivable that the mirror life bacteria will mutate and evolve, forming a new branch of life, while the old form of life might find ways to combat the newly arrived invaders. It is certain, however, that there will be no sentient being to observe this drama. It will be a proper extinction.

Final Words

Not so long ago, it was socially acceptable to publicly and proudly talk about research where chimeric pathogens were being created under the pretext that it is “needed” to be able to fight novel diseases before they even appear or some other seemingly plausible excuse. Did those efforts help? Of course not. Was it done in good faith or was it a sugarcoated bioweapons research? I’d say the latter. Was there an opposition to these efforts? Yes, absolutely. But nobody cared for a long time. And while eventually reason started to take root and such research got de-funded in some parts of the world, it most certainly did not stop. While for most of all the idea of a hybrid between influenza and AIDS is a nightmare fuel, there is no doubt that there are plenty of undereducated psychopaths who would love to see this made and weaponized. And I do say “undereducated” here because an educated psychopath would understand that this is not a good, controllable weapon, so it really should not be created or used.

So where are we with the mirror life? To my best knowledge, most biologists clearly understand the dangers involved. However, some would argue for “limited” steps in that direction, on some fake grounds like “it will help to discover new drugs” or such. To my best knowledge, there is no real recognition of the dangers of mirror life on the level of governments. There is no legal ban on research and engineering in that area either. The problem with this is that unless there is a universal and strictly enforced ban, the mirror life might get created eventually, and as was mentioned already, a single mirror life bacteria let loose is all that it takes to wipe out the life as we know it.