Isolation of SARS-CoV-2-related coronavirus from Malayan pangolins

Public access to the WIV's database of viral genomes was removed early in the pandemic, and never restored. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.12.528210v2 Pangolins were initially proposed as the proximal host, but that's been abandoned for years. After a long delay, the paper in Nature was extensively corrected, following Alina Chan's discovery that the alleged multiple samples were all from a single batch of smuggled pangolins. These were probably infected during trafficking, in the same way that housecats are sometimes infected by SARS-CoV-2 but aren't the source. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374v2 The goal of research like DEFUSE was gain of function, a deadlier or faster-spreading virus. That goal wasn't always successfully achieved, but that's true for all goals. The point is that skilled researchers specifically trying to achieve a goal (like by directed evolution during serial passage, or by genetic engineering) are much more likely to do so than would random point mutations alone. None of this means it's certain that SARS-CoV-2 arose from an accident at the WIV. The picture that you've received isn't accurate, though.

infected humans. All of these are speculative, since no infected animal (except animals probably infected by humans) has been found. The absence of infected animals isn't proof of unnatural origin, but it's different from SARS-1 and MERS, despite a much greater effort to search.

will be taken once this matter is resolved. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x No one is seriously proposing pangolins anymore, not even Daszak and the Chinese. The proximal host for MERS (camels) was identified in a little over a year, and for the original SARS (palm civets) in a little less. For SARS-CoV-2, despite the much greater effort, we're still waiting.

more likely that something else infected those pangolins, in the same way e.g. that some housecats have been infected by their owners. Nature has added an editor's note[3] to one of the pangolin papers, and even Daszak and the Chinese have pretty much abandoned the pangolins. So for now, there's no known animal host for SARS-CoV-2, unlike for the original SARS-CoV (palm civets) or MERS-CoV-2 (camels). Perhaps the animal reservoir just hasn't been found yet; but it's also possible that animal reservoir doesn't exist, because SARS-CoV-2 originated from serial passaging in a WIV lab. That's just natural evolution under unusually fast selective pressure, so any arguments that SARS-CoV-2 shows no evidence of genetic engineering are inapplicable to that theory. 1. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/12/20-2308_article 2. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374v2 3. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x