Very interesting stuff. The article itself doesn't make any claims about the origins of the pandemic, however, that's just the Nature News spin. For example:

Very interesting stuff. The article itself doesn't make any claims about the origins of the pandemic, however, that's just the Nature News spin. For example: "Regarding the spike, we identied a breakpoint at the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 RBD, resulting in a downstream fragment composed of the RBD, the furin cleavage site, and ending in the N-terminal region of S2. Despite the absence of the furin site in these novel bat sarbecoviruses, phylogenetic reconstruction of this fragment, key for the virus tropism and host spectrum, revealed that Laotian R. malayanus BANAL-52, R. pusillus BANAL-103, and R. marshalli BANAL-236 coronaviruses are the closest ancestors of SARS-CoV-2 known to date." Basically, the human furin cleavage site that allows for human cell infection is lacking in these newly discovered viruses. Speculation that the site was introduced into a progenitor bat coronavirus deliberately as part of gain-of-function research is still valid, i.e. the question remains open.