[RC one]

Obviously this virus is not straight from the bats so it seems plausible that there could be deliberate manipulation but HOW did they do it? They would have to have a technology way more advanced than what we have.

Coronavirus may have been a 'cell-culture experiment' gone wrong

You tube video of Professor Nikolai Petrovsky discussing the possibility of lab origin

And let's not forgot this:

SARS escaped Beijing lab twice

And the mysterious Furin Cleavage site:

The virus does have an inexplicable feature: a so-called “furin cleavage site” in the spike protein that helps SARS-CoV-2 pry its way into human cells. While such sites are present in some coronaviruses, they haven’t been found in any of SARS-CoV-2’s closest known relatives. “We don’t know where the furin site came from,” says Susan Weiss, a microbiologist who co-directs the Penn Center for Research on Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Pathogens at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “It’s a mystery.”

Massive coincidence? Study says coronavirus adapted too quickly to humans, raises questions on its origin Experts found that Covid-19 bound tightest to human cells than any other species tested. This is either a massive coincidence or Covid-19 has somehow, in the past, been adapted for human cells.

[BDParrish]

Thanks RC!
I see now that the words “lab leak” and “engineered virus” are fungible terms, and in themselves are not enlightening either pro or con. The perspective of Petrovsky reported by Ch. Schmidt’s March 17th Medscape article is, IMHO, unremarkable and requires no magical thinking, nor suspicion of nefarious motives.

Throughout the article however Schmidt uses the term “engineered” meaning sometimes the idea that there is secret magical gene-splicing technology, and other times meaning that at Wuhan lab they were dumping stuff into petri dishes and saying, “Hey Yang, come look at this!”