O-8 - BANAL-52 bat sarbecovirus from Laos is 96.8% identical to SARS-CoV-2, closer than RaTG13
From sampling 645 bats across 6 families/46 species. The mosaic pattern shows recombination among naturally circulating sarbecoviruses generating SARS-CoV-2-like spike segments.
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Why this is evidence
The mosaic spike shows natural recombination in wild sarbecoviruses generating SARS-CoV-2-like spike segments, which is what H-1 and H-6 need and which removes work an engineering account would otherwise have to do under H-5. The Laotian location additionally raises H-6’s distant-spillover leg relative to H-1’s market-local one.