Could the novel coronavirus have been genetically engineered in a lab?

At the AAAS annual meeting on Feb. 13, Bedford fielded a number of questions from the international press corps about stories circulating that the virus causing COVID-19 might have been genetically engineered. “If you look for evidence of genetic engineering, you can find none whatsoever. It is completely consistent with natural evolution,” Bedford said.

In a Feb. 20 Twitter thread, Bedford summarized the evidence supporting a natural, rather than laboratory, origin for the virus: