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.

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.

The split between measles and rinderpest is clearly underestimated.

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.