[tonypace]

No, probably not.

There is evidence that there virus was not engineered. The spike protein is completely novel and existing techniques for finding bonding proteins do not see this virus as a good binding candidate.

It is conceivable that the lab was studying bat coronavirus and accidentally released it, but Occam's razor suggests that the market where most early patients contacted the virus, similar to the market where SARS evolved, is the actual source.