zlacker

The furor about the lab leak theory isn't solely due to the 3 hospitalized workers, but also due to a well-sourced article [0] written by a editor of the Science section of the New York Times (as well as for Science and Nature), Nicholas Wade. Those two broke on the same day. Papers hadn't been covering the theory in depth since last summer.

In my opinion the most damning part of the article is the section about the human-adapted furin cleavage, I recommend reading that part. The working assumption is that we should find people with precursors to covid without that furin cleavage adaptation, and we don't. If China wants to prove it wasn't a lab leak, they'll need to find instances of the virus that predated that adaptation- as was the case with SARS.

[0] https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

>>txru+(OP)
But isn't it true that furin cleavage adaptation is also found naturally in other betacoronaviruses?

It would seem to me that shows it's not the "smoking gun" many people believe it to be.