(17.11.2020)

We here describe how the two main SARS‐CoV‐2 features, (1) the presence of a furin cleavage site missing in other CoVs of the same group and (2) an receptor binding domain (RBD) optimized to bind to human cells[2] might be the result of lab manipulation techniques such as site‐directed mutagenesis. The acquisition of both unique features by SARS‐CoV‐2 more or less simultaneously is less likely to be natural or caused only by cell/animal serial passage.