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Comment by Opus_723

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Reddit commenter participating in r/science discussions about COVID-19 origins and zoonotic spillover.
My problem with this has always been that the lab didn't just continually get new samples. They went on expeditions to collect wildlife samples. The last expedition was years before COVID, and they had already sequenced and published everything from that expedition. So unless there was some kind of later secret expedition nobody knows about, or they held back the COVID sequence years before the pandemic for some reason, they just didn't have it.
AI Verified (Mar 10, 2026)
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Opus_723, comment on "Recent pandemic viruses jumped to humans without prior adaptation," Reddit r/science, March 10, 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 Relevant: in context, this quote responds to a comment advancing a lab-leak scenario and argues the Wuhan lab likely did not possess the necessary virus/sample at all, so a determinate stance on the complete statement is substantially more likely. ([reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1rpkoz1/recent_pandemic_viruses_jumped_to_humans_without/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
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AI Verified In context, 'this' is a reply to a proposed accidental lab-infection theory, and the author says the lab's last sampling expedition was years earlier and that 'they just didn't have it,' implying the lab lacked the virus and so opposing a lab-origin explanation absent some secret expedition or withheld sequence. ([reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1rpkoz1/recent_pandemic_viruses_jumped_to_humans_without/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago

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AI Verified The Reddit page at the provided URL contains the exact quoted text verbatim at lines 1135–1136, and it is immediately attributed to the Reddit user Opus_723 at line 1129. The search result for that same URL shows the thread date as Tuesday, March 10, 2026. The stored author, quote text, date, and source URL all match the fetchable evidence. ([reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1rpkoz1/recent_pandemic_viruses_jumped_to_humans_without/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
replying to Opus_723