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Comment by Sergei L. Kosakovsky Pond

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Computational evolutionary biologist at Temple University and coauthor of a 2026 Cell study on viral epidemic origins
Examining the zoonotic emergence of Ebola virus, Marburg virus, mpox virus, influenza A virus, and SARS-CoV-2, we find no evidence of a change in selection intensity immediately prior to outbreaks in humans compared with typical selection within reservoir hosts.
Disputed (Mar 6, 2026)
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Sergei L. Kosakovsky Pond, coauthor of Jennifer L. Havens et al., "Dynamics of natural selection preceding human viral epidemics and pandemics," Cell, published online March 6, 2026.
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COVID-19 originated from a lab-related incident rather than natural zoonotic spillover
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Disputed The sentence is real and appears verbatim in the PubMed record’s snippet for PMID 41794027 and in the publisher’s ScienceDirect summary for the Cell article published online on 2026-03-06. However, the source attributes the paper to multiple individual authors, not to Sergei L. Kosakovsky Pond alone, so this platform cannot verify it as a single-author quote. ([pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41794027/?fc=None&ff=20260308065902&v=2.19.0.post6+133c1fe&utm_source=openai)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
replying to Sergei L. Kosakovsky Pond