The seminal paper from the Wuhan Institute of Virology claiming SARS-CoV-2 probably originated in bats appears to contain a contrived specimen, an incomplete and inaccurate genomic assembly, and the signature of laboratory-derived synthetic biology

The bat coronavirus RaTG13 was purportedly identified in a bat “fecal” specimen that is probably
not feces, has significant unresolved method-dependent genome sequence errors and an
incomplete assembly with significant gaps, and has an anomalous base substitution pattern
that has never been seen in nature but is routinely used in codon-optimized synthetic genome
constructions performed in the laboratory.