DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19) is a loose collection of internet activists assembled to investigate the origins of COVID-19, in particular the lab leak theory.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Composed of about 30 core members, and primarily organized through the social media website Twitter,[1][7][8] DRASTIC was formed in February 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.[7] DRASTIC members called for a "full and unrestricted investigation" into the origins of COVID-19, conducted independently of the World Health Organization;[1] most scientists thought that COVID-19 likely had a natural origin, and some considered that a potential lab leak was worth investigating.[4][2][9][10]
Many of DRASTIC's members use pseudonyms, while identified members have backgrounds including mycology,[11][12] neuroscience, and data science.[7][13]
In May 2020, a DRASTIC member discovered a master's thesis and a PhD thesis, according to which three bat guano miners from Mojiang county in Yunnan Province who fell ill with a pneumonia-like illness in 2012 had actually died from a SARS-like coronavirus.[8][14] After the miners fell ill, and before the causative agent was determined, Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists visited to collect virus samples to investigate whether the cause was a novel coronavirus. According to scientists at the WIV, clinical assays showed the causative agent of the illness was likely not any of the several discovered coronaviruses, but instead fungal in origin.[15][16] One of the samples collected, RaBtCoV/4991, later renamed to RaTG13,[17] was the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 before more closely related wild coronaviruses were discovered,[18][19] which led to speculation that it might be related to the origin of the pandemic.[20][21] However, while RaTG-13 and SARS-CoV-2 are related, they are not closely enough related to be the product of genetic engineering or passaging in a laboratory.[22] Analysis of clinical reports from the patients furthermore indicates that they were not infected with SARS-CoV-2.[23] The role of the Mojiang miners incident has been reported to be a key part of efforts to investigate the origins of the virus, and Anthony Fauci has urged China to release further information about the miners.[20]
In September 2021, DRASTIC leaked a rejected grant proposal by EcoHealth Alliance and co-investigators, submitted to DARPA in 2018. The proposed project cost $14.2 million and was aimed at "defusing the threat of bat-borne coronaviruses". The leaked documents included a plan to insert "human-specific" furin cleavage sites into SARS-like bat coronaviruses. The furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 generated some controversy early in the pandemic, as the closest related known coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, RaTG-13) do not contain such a site. This anomaly is most likely the result of recombination,[24][25] and has not been seen in similar viruses because of inadequate sampling and sequencing of this group of viruses.[26][27] Many other animal coronaviruses do contain such sites.[28] Under close genetic examination, SARS-CoV-2 shows no signs of genetic modification and no precursor virus has been identified.[29] While the mere presence of the furin cleavage site is not suspicious, some scientists argue the fact that these experiments were proposed raises concerns.[30][31][32]
In 2021 CNET reported that members of DRASTIC have engaged in personal attacks against virologists and epidemiologists on Twitter, falsely accusing some of working for the Chinese Communist Party.[1]
To be clear, most scientists think animal spillover is the most likely explanation because that's where most new diseases come from.
Although the fungus turned out to be the pathogen that had sickened the miners...
Scientists returning to the mine at the end of 2012 found samples of a pathogen that came to be known as the "Mojiang virus", found in rats and unrelated to SARS-CoV-2. Subsequent research was unable to confirm whether it caused the miners' illness. According to the Wuhan Institute of Virology's Shi Zhengli, China's top bat coronavirus researcher, the workers' pneumonia-like symptoms were caused by a fungal infection. Shi and her team also said in research published last November that they had retested 13 serum samples from four of the patients and found no sign they had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.
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Under any laboratory escape scenario, SARS-CoV-2 would have to have been present in a laboratory prior to the pandemic, yet no evidence exists to support such a notion and no sequence has been identified that could have served as a precursor...The SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site (containing the amino acid motif RRAR) does not match its canonical form (R-X-R/KR), is suboptimal compared to those of HCoV-HKU1 and HCoV-OC43, lacks either a P1 or P2 arginine (depending on the alignment), and was caused by an out-of-frame insertion...There is no logical reason why an engineered virus would utilize such a suboptimal furin cleavage site, which would entail such an unusual and needlessly complex feat of genetic engineering...Further, there is no evidence of prior research at the WIV involving the artificial insertion of complete furin cleavage sites into coronaviruses."