zlacker

>>datafl+(OP)
I'm very confused by the article.

There has been an extensive analysis by a virologist on Reddit[¹], who claimed that, very simply, SARS-COV2 is a so-called "mosaic" virus, while man-made viruses are inevitably "chimera" ones. The article does not seem to make this distinction.

The virologist also chimed on HN (besides, calling BS on people who were, out of ignorance, spreading false beliefs), but it seems he's not participating to this post.

It'd be best to have the opinion of a specialized scientist, in order to to have scientific clarity before starting the political arguments.

[¹]=https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

>>pizza2+XJ
When this came up on HN before, it looked like the argument was premised on the divergence between RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 -- it's not reasonable to think some lab started from RaTG13 and ended up with SARS-CoV-2. It's a very long reddit thread and I'm not a biologist, so it's hard to be sure. But on that understanding, my objection is "WIV had many unpublished coronavirus samples, and took their database offline in fall 2019. RaTG13 is just the least distant relative to SARS-CoV-2 that they did publish." as I said last time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26756618