Each vial contains approximately 0.5 mL of cell lysate and supernatant from Cercopithecus aethiops kidney cells infected with SARS-CoV-2, isolate USA-WA1/2020.
Cell lysate and supernatant from kidney cells has a metric shitton of other cellular material in it (including DNA/RNA etc.). For me, as someone who works with similar things, this is sufficient isolate for me to do work. Having said that, as far as a true isolate (complete viral bodies isolated from cellular material in sufficient quantities to do work) this is not an "isolate" by that definition.
There are two competing things here. For the skeptic of whether or not SARS-CoV-2 exists at all as a complete virus, that type of isolation has never been done (or at least such an experiment has never been done in the literature).
While I am a skeptic of SARS-CoV-2's existence, I am barely one. I am a skeptic only in the sense that I retain skepticism about everything, i.e. my mind is open to any evidence contrary to my current actionable intelligence. Nevertheless, based on all of the evidence I have seen, and having sufficient experience in biology to understand the nuances of the studies, I am reasonably convinced that SARS-CoV-2 is a real virus that makes people sick and is occasionally fatal (though no where near as sick nor as fatal as the common narrative suggests, based on all of the evidence).
It is important to understand these two definitions of "isolation" because they are essential in bridging the gap between the two sides of the conversation. Both are valid. My lack of complete skepticism relating to the existence of SARS-CoV-2 is based on OTHER evidences, and not that which would be required by a complete isolation of intact viral bodies (which as I said, has never been done vis a vis the literature).
There is nothing suspicious about such an isolation never having been done. Such an isolation would be the correct experiment to prove it's existence, but is neither necessary nor (for practical purposes) protocol for doing real biological work on it.
There are actually thousands of electron microscopic images of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. None of them are isolates.
A viral isolate is a complete isolation of sufficient quantities of whole, intact viral bodies to do experiments on them, where such bodies are completely separated from all other biological material. Taking a picture of a viral body, and doing a fractionation to extract them out --> then doing a whole genome sequencing (WGS) to determine the viruses RNA sequence are two completely separate processes.
Unless the virus has been completely isolated there is no way to know for certain that you are working with the same material because the second process (fractionation) will include other DNA/RNA that must be separated out using statistics and computer alignment (educated guessing) of the subsequent RNA reads in the WGS process.. The supposition that it is the same material is based on the design of the experiment which can give, at best, a reasonable statistical probability that it is so.
A complete isolation is what would be required of a stand alone biological experiment to prove that the virus is what other experiments say it is. This has never been done in any literature that I have looked at (I've been looking for over a year).
That does not mean that I personally require such a standard to be met. I do not. I think that the electron microscopic images and RNA sequencing are sufficient to prove SARS-CoV-2's existence to me. I have done such "isolations" (not for viruses, but for many other types of subcellular biological material) and this to me is sufficient evidence to create actionable intelligence working with the theory that the virus does exist. But to say that it has been isolated in the complete way required for undeniable proof of existence is not true. That has never been done. It is these competing standards both of which are valid, that drives the problem of conversation.
Cell lysate and supernatant from kidney cells has a metric shitton of other cellular material in it (including DNA/RNA etc.). For me, as someone who works with similar things, this is sufficient isolate for me to do work. Having said that, as far as a true isolate (complete viral bodies isolated from cellular material in sufficient quantities to do work) this is not an "isolate" by that definition.
There are two competing things here. For the skeptic of whether or not SARS-CoV-2 exists at all as a complete virus, that type of isolation has never been done (or at least such an experiment has never been done in the literature).
While I am a skeptic of SARS-CoV-2's existence, I am barely one. I am a skeptic only in the sense that I retain skepticism about everything, i.e. my mind is open to any evidence contrary to my current actionable intelligence. Nevertheless, based on all of the evidence I have seen, and having sufficient experience in biology to understand the nuances of the studies, I am reasonably convinced that SARS-CoV-2 is a real virus that makes people sick and is occasionally fatal (though no where near as sick nor as fatal as the common narrative suggests, based on all of the evidence).
It is important to understand these two definitions of "isolation" because they are essential in bridging the gap between the two sides of the conversation. Both are valid. My lack of complete skepticism relating to the existence of SARS-CoV-2 is based on OTHER evidences, and not that which would be required by a complete isolation of intact viral bodies (which as I said, has never been done vis a vis the literature).
There is nothing suspicious about such an isolation never having been done. Such an isolation would be the correct experiment to prove it's existence, but is neither necessary nor (for practical purposes) protocol for doing real biological work on it.
There are actually thousands of electron microscopic images of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. None of them are isolates.
A viral isolate is a complete isolation of sufficient quantities of whole, intact viral bodies to do experiments on them, where such bodies are completely separated from all other biological material. Taking a picture of a viral body, and doing a fractionation to extract them out --> then doing a whole genome sequencing (WGS) to determine the viruses RNA sequence are two completely separate processes.
Unless the virus has been completely isolated there is no way to know for certain that you are working with the same material because the second process (fractionation) will include other DNA/RNA that must be separated out using statistics and computer alignment (educated guessing) of the subsequent RNA reads in the WGS process.. The supposition that it is the same material is based on the design of the experiment which can give, at best, a reasonable statistical probability that it is so.
A complete isolation is what would be required of a stand alone biological experiment to prove that the virus is what other experiments say it is. This has never been done in any literature that I have looked at (I've been looking for over a year).
That does not mean that I personally require such a standard to be met. I do not. I think that the electron microscopic images and RNA sequencing are sufficient to prove SARS-CoV-2's existence to me. I have done such "isolations" (not for viruses, but for many other types of subcellular biological material) and this to me is sufficient evidence to create actionable intelligence working with the theory that the virus does exist. But to say that it has been isolated in the complete way required for undeniable proof of existence is not true. That has never been done. It is these competing standards both of which are valid, that drives the problem of conversation.