A prominent report claimed substantial support for two introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into humans using a calculation that combined phylodynamic inferences and epidemic models. Inspection of the calculation identifies an imbalance in the hypothesis testing framework that confounds this result; the single-introduction model was tested against more stringent conditions than the two-introduction model. Here, I show that when the two-introduction model is tested against the same conditions, the support disappears.
@article{arxiv.2502.20076,
title = {Purported quantitative support for multiple introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into humans is an artefact of an imbalanced hypothesis testing framework},
author = {Angus McCowan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.20076},
year = {2026}
}
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