Note that the paper was submitted 12 years ago. They've had a lot of time to work out the kinks, if they were so inclined.
EDIT:
I want to repeat what I've said in other comments, because what I initially said was inaccurate. These researchers didn't actually create a new coronavirus, but rather a much simpler and safer virus purpose-built to test some receptor-binding structures.
This is a well-established way to study viruses safely, and this kind of work is critical if we're to learn how to develop vaccines faster in response to epidemics.
If it's a bioweapon, why was it published?
Is there any concrete genetic or documented evidence to show COVID-19 is engineered? This is a big claim and has severe ramifications for China, if true.
It seems to me that if there was any malign intent behind this work, they would not have published a paper on it. Obviously, that's doesn't preclude the possibility of an accidental release from the same lab twelve years later. As far as I know, there's no way to prove whether 2019's coronavirus was engineered in any way.
This kind of work is critical if we're to learn how to develop vaccines faster in response to epidemics.
> "The evidence we have is that the mutations [in the virus] are completely consistent with natural evolution".[19] Bedford further explained, "The most likely scenario, based on genetic analysis, was that the virus was transmitted by a bat to another mammal between 20–70 years ago. This intermediary animal—not yet identified—passed it on to its first human host in the city of Wuhan in late November or early December 2019" [1]
"20-70 years ago"! [2] Also important: "was transmitted by a bat to another mammal". That could imply it wasn't from bat soup or bats directly.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_the_...
[1] http://english.whiov.cas.cn/ne/201903/t20190308_206697.html
Unfortunately so many have an innate bias against the US that any criticism of it is considered fair game regardless of how conspiratorial or absurd.
That's not true at all. Rather, there's randomness around what gets flagged and/or moderated. People read into that whatever patterns they want to see, or are already convinced are happening.
For what it's worth, one of the names on that paper is Shi Zhengli, one of the lab’s top researchers who is now defending the lab to the media:
[Shi Zhengli] said on her social media account that she “guaranteed with her own life” that the outbreak had nothing to do with the lab but was a “nemesis for the barbaric habits and lifestyle of some people – like eating wild game including bats.”
https://asiatimes.com/2020/02/coronavirus-lab-leakage-rumors...
EDIT:
As I noted in my other comment, these researchers didn't actually create a new coronavirus, but rather a much simpler and safer virus purpose-built to test some receptor-binding structures.
https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899
In this study, a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-based pseudovirus system was employed to address these issues. Our results indicated that the SL-CoV S protein is unable to use ACE2 proteins of different species for cell entry and that SARS-CoV S protein also failed to bind the ACE2 molecule of the horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus pearsonii. However, when the RBD of SL-CoV S was replaced with that from the SARS-CoV S, the hybrid S protein was able to use the huACE2 for cell entry, implying that the SL-CoV S proteins are structurally and functionally very similar to the SARS-CoV S. These results suggest that although the SL-CoVs discovered in bats so far are unlikely to infect humans using ACE2 as a receptor, it remains to be seen whether they are able to use other surface molecules of certain human cell types to gain entry. It is also conceivable that these viruses may become infectious to humans if they undergo N-terminal sequence variation, for example, through recombination with other CoVs, which in turn might lead to a productive interaction with ACE2 or other surface proteins on human cells.
Look at the authors:
Zhengli Shi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Zhengli
She is a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Shi and her colleague Cui Jie found that the SARS virus originated in bats.