The split between measles and rinderpest is clearly underestimated.

Joel Wertheim

Now, I realize it sounds like I just said that a once-in-a-generation event happened twice in short succession, and pandemics are indeed rare, but once all the conditions are in place -- that is a zoonotic virus capable of both human infection and human transmission that is in close proximity to humans -- the barriers to spillover have been lowered such that multiple introductions, we believe, should actually be expected, i was quite convinced of the lab leak Kristian Andersen, until we dove into this very carefully and looked at it much closer.

The raw ingredients for a zoonotic virus with pandemic potential are still lurking in the wild.

There was nothing that could have been brought into the lab and manipulated to make it look like this. It's a unique virus like every other virus that's circulating in the wild is unique.

You can change [your estimates] by an order of magnitude by taking purifying selection into account.

I was astonished when I saw they were able to pull out an over 100-year-old virus from lung tissue.