***In fact, there appear to have been 2 separate spillover events. No early cases cluster around any other location, such as the WIV, so this already suspicious event essentially happened twice! ***
Note these claims have been seriously challenged in the past few months:
Spatial statistics experts Stoyan and Chiu (2024) dispute the analysis that Huanan Seafood Market was necessarily early epicenter. https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrsssa/qnad139/7557954
Lv et al (2024) find the multiple spillover theory is unlikely. A single point of emergence is more likely with lineage A coming first. So market cases are not the primary cases (all market linked cases were lineage B). Their findings are consistent with Caraballo-Ortiz (2022), Bloom (2021). t.co/50kFV9zSb6
Jesse Bloom showed again the available market samples don't support market origin. t.co/rorquFs1wm
Michael Weissman uses a mathematical argument to show ascertainment bias in early case data. (George Gao, the Chinese CDC head at the time, acknowledged this to the BBC last year - they focused too much on and around the market and may have missed cases on the other side of the city).
arxiv.org/abs/2401.08680 (now published but paywalled https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jrsssa/qnae021/7632556)
The Account that identified errors in Pekar et. al. leading to an erratum last year has found another significant error. Single spillover again looks more likely. t.co/GAPihZu51P
Weissman's Bayesian analysis provides a thorough overview and is probably as good a case for lab origin as any. https://michaelweissman.substack.com/p/an-inconvenient-probability
A problem with the debate format is mistakes that may be picked up if submissions were filed in advance can get missed. For example, the claim serial passage would show N501Y mutations that are not seen in SARS-CoV-2 was incorrect. It would in BALB/c mice but not hACE2 mice which is what WIV had.
In terms of getting to the truth of the matter since the debate several new papers have undermined the core arguments relied on from Worobey et al and Pekar et al. for Huanan Seafood Market origin:
Spatial statistics experts Stoyan and Chiu (2024) find the statistical argument by Worobey et. al. that Huanan Seafood Market was the early epicenter is flawed. https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrsssa/qnad139/7557954
Lv et. al. (2024) found new intermediate genomes so the multiple spillover theory is unlikely (it was anyway given lineage A and B are only two mutations apart). Single point of emergence is more likely with lineage A coming first. The market cases were all lineage B so not the primary cases. Their findings are consistent with Caraballo-Ortiz (2022), Bloom (2021). t.co/50kFV9zSb6
Jesse Bloom (2023) published a new analysis showing that genetic material from some animal CoVs is fairly abundant in samples collected during the wildlife-stall sampling of the Huanan Market on Jan-12-2020. However, SARS-CoV-2 is not one of these CoVs. t.co/rorquFs1wm
Michael Weissman (2024) shows a model with ascertainment collider stratification bias fits early Covid case location data much better than the model that all cases ultimately stemmed from the market. George Gao, Chinese CDC head at the time, acknowledged this to the BBC last year - they focused too much on and around the market and may have missed cases on the other side of the city).
https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrsssa/qnae021/7632556
The anonymous expert who identified coding errors in Pekar et. al. leading to an erratum last year has found another significant error. Single spillover looks more likely. t.co/GAPihZu51P
Ultimately was performing in vivo experiments in transgenic (human ACE2 expressing) mice and civets in 2018 and 2019 in SARS-like CoVs. The results are unknown and they won't share their records.