Pekar et al.'s corrected analysis retained the two-spillover conclusion after the 2023 erratum
2 events · 1 assessment
Assessed Verified
verdict confidence 0.90
As a descriptive matter this holds: the October 2023 erratum to Pekar et al.'s 2022 Science paper corrected a coding error that had overestimated the statistical support for multiple introductions, and the corrected analysis still concluded that SARS-CoV-2's lineages A and B most likely arose from at least two separate cross-species transmission events. The published erratum states plainly that the corrected Bayes factors and topology frequencies were lower than originally reported but "still favor the multiple introduction scenario," so the two-spillover conclusion was retained rather than withdrawn. What remains genuinely disputed is not whether the paper kept its conclusion but whether keeping it was justified. Critics who prompted the correction (and subsequent commenters) argue that the corrected Bayes factors fall to only "moderate" support, that the erratum understated the scope of the fixes, and that further alleged errors and excluded intermediate sequences weaken or reverse the inference. That substantive question — whether the two-spillover inference is actually robust — is a separate, live controversy and is not settled by the fact that the erratum retained the wording of the original conclusion.
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