Less Than 1 in 100 Million Chance That COVID-19 Has Natural Origin: New Study

Travelers walk through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on April 19, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

News Analysis

A new study on the origins of the pandemic, “Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV2,” published on the preprint server bioRxiv, concludes that it is highly likely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 originated in a laboratory. The odds of a natural origin, according to the study, are placed at less than 1 in 100 million.