What they’re saying: On Thursday morning, Science magazine convened a rare roundtable featuring scientists from both sides of the debate.

A major problem is “we can’t really say how the virus got to Wuhan,” said Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, adding there is “not a high, or any natural prevalence of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan.”

That fact — and that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was working with samples taken from bats that have a high risk of harboring COVID-like coronaviruses — “is why I continue to think a lab leak is highly probable,” Bloom said.

The other side: Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, argued there were “so many more opportunities for non-research-connected activity to bring these viruses” to Wuhan, such as via China’s robust wildlife trade.