
The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 - zekrioca
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
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arcanus
'Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a
purposefully manipulated virus.'

~~~
T-A
They start out saying that, but keep reading and "clearly show" becomes "is
improbable":

"It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a
related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus. As noted above, the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is
optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution different from
those previously predicted. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been
performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for
betacoronaviruses would probably have been used19. However, the genetic data
irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus
backbone."

Their argument boils down to "it doesn't look like previously published work"
(that's me paraphrasing, not a quote).

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throwaway5752
_" Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully
manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other
theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable
SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site,
in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of
laboratory-based scenario is plausible."_

~~~
GrumpyNl
But they are not 100% sure.

~~~
jacquesm
That's how science works. 99.9% still leaves a small chance, so no good
scientist would say 'I'm sure'. They'd only say that if they had proof of
something and _you can 't prove a negative_. So there never will be proof that
it is not the case, only ever more evidence that it probably is not the case.
And all of that evidence could - in theory - be made moot by proof to the
contrary.

