2021/06/03 by Yuri Deigin, Rossana Segreto, Deigin, Yuri +1
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · #FOS: Biological sciences #Genomics (q-bio.GN) #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) #SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research #Viral gastroenteritis research and epidemiology #Zoonotic diseases and public health #q-bio.GN #q-bio.PE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2106.02020
9 pages, 2 figures
openalex publication_date 2021/06/03 · arxiv created 2021/06/04 · arxiv updated 2021/06/08 · openalex created_date 2021/06/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Tyshkovskiy and Panchin have recently published a commentary on our paper in which they outline several "points of disagreement with the Segreto/Deigin hypothesis". As our paper is titled "The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin", points of disagreement should provide evidence that rules out a laboratory origin. However, Tyshkovskiy and Panchin provide no such evidence and instead attempt to criticize our arguments that highlight aspects of SARS-CoV-2 that could be consistent with the lab leak hypothesis. Strikingly, Tyshkovskiy and Panchin's main point of criticism is based on a false premise that we have claimed RaTG13 to be a direct progenitor of SARS-CoV-2, and their other points of criticism are either incorrect or irrelevant to our hypotheses. Thus, the genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 remains consistent with both natural or laboratory origin, which means that both the zoonotic and the lab leak hypothesis need to be investigated equally thoroughly.