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Comment by University of California San Diego

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California public research university
No evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was shaped by selection in a laboratory or prolonged evolution in an intermediate host prior to its emergence.
AI Verified source (Mar 9, 2026)
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Policy proposals and claims
COVID-19 originated from a lab-related incident rather than natural zoonotic spillover
votes Against
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AI Verified The quote is directly about COVID-19 origins, and the source context says this lack of laboratory-selection evidence is what would be expected from a natural zoonotic event and is evidence against laboratory-origin theories, so the author's stance on the broader lab-versus-spillover claim is determinable. ([newswise.com](https://www.newswise.com/articles/recent-pandemic-viruses-jumped-to-humans-without-prior-adaptation-uc-san-diego-study-finds)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
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AI Verified The author is against the statement: the quote says there was "no evidence" SARS-CoV-2 was shaped in a laboratory, and the source context says that is what would be expected from a "natural zoonotic event" and is "another nail in the coffin" for lab-manipulation theories. ([newswise.com](https://www.newswise.com/articles/recent-pandemic-viruses-jumped-to-humans-without-prior-adaptation-uc-san-diego-study-finds)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago

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AI Verified Verified: the exact sentence appears verbatim in the Newswise source URL, and that page is bylined to University of California San Diego and dated 9-Mar-2026. The same article also contains Joel Wertheim’s longer quoted version beginning “From an evolutionary perspective, we find no evidence...,” which corroborates the wording. ([newswise.com](https://www.newswise.com/articles/recent-pandemic-viruses-jumped-to-humans-without-prior-adaptation-uc-san-diego-study-finds)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
replying to University of California San Diego