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Comment by Maciej F. Boni

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Associate professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University studying infectious disease epidemiology and viral evolution
This question has been discussed a lot, both in the media and by scientists over the past two years. And there’s still no evidence that the virus could have originated in a lab or that it could have been made in a lab or that it could have escaped or leaked out of a lab in any way. All the current evidence points to a natural origin, which is a crossing over from the natural context that human and animal populations have with each other routinely in East and Southeast Asia.
AI Verified (Oct 7, 2021)
Source:
Maciej F. Boni, quoted by SciLine, "Origins of COVID-19," posted October 7, 2021.
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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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Statement relation comments

AI Verified The quote is directly about the statement’s core question—lab-related origin versus natural zoonotic spillover. On the source page, it appears under “How likely is it that a lab release event is responsible for the origin of SARS-CoV-2, given current evidence?” and Boni says there is “still no evidence” for lab origin or escape while “all the current evidence points to a natural origin,” so the author’s stance on the complete statement is clearly determinable. ([sciline.org](https://www.sciline.org/covid-19/quotes-origins/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3h ago
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AI Verified He explicitly rejects the statement, saying there is "still no evidence" for a lab origin or leak and that "all the current evidence points to a natural origin," i.e., zoonotic spillover rather than a lab-related incident. ([sciline.org](https://www.sciline.org/covid-19/quotes-origins/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 2h ago

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Quote authenticity comments

AI Verified Verified: the provided SciLine page contains this quote verbatim (the text is split by a line break after "way." but the wording matches exactly), attributes it to Maciej F. Boni, Ph.D., and labels it "Posted October 7, 2021." The stored author, date, source URL, and content are consistent with the source, so no correction is needed. ([sciline.org](https://www.sciline.org/covid-19/quotes-origins/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3h ago
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