Abstract

Tyshkovskiy and Panchin have recently published a commentary on our paper in which they outline several “points of disagreement with the Segreto/Deigin hypothesis.” As our paper is titled “The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin,” points of disagreement should provide evidence that rules out a laboratory origin. However, Tyshkovskiy and Panchin provide no such evidence and instead attempt to criticize our arguments that highlight aspects of SARS‐CoV‐2 that could be consistent with the lab leak hypothesis. Strikingly, Tyshkovskiy and Panchin's main point of criticism is based on a false premise that we have claimed RaTG13 to be a direct progenitor of SARS‐CoV‐2, and their other points of criticism are either not valid, based on flawed mathematical analysis, or are unrelated to our hypotheses. Thus, the genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 remains consistent with both natural or laboratory origin, which means that both the zoonotic and the lab leak hypothesis need to be investigated equally thoroughly.