Removal of a claim of "dispositive" evidence isn't weakening the case; there could be further incontrovertible evidence that would make the present evidence no longer dispositive.
Removal of a claim of "dispositive" evidence isn't weakening the case; there could be further incontrovertible evidence that would make the present evidence no longer dispositive.
The 174 cases with onset in Dec 2019 considered by Worobey et al. include both confirmed cases and clinically diagnosed cases. Therefore, most, if not all, of these cases had been identified using the criteria that the patients had to either be linked to the market or, if unlinked to the market, have been identified at hospitals near the market or in the neighborhood of the market.
See also: https://twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1500593644428214272
“However, the observation that the preponderance of early cases were linked to the Huanan market does not establish that the pandemic originated there.”
Further, to my knowledge it is known that "case zero" (i.e. the zoonotic event) did not occur at the Wuhan market, specifically because there was already sequence divergence in early cases.
However, that doesn't prevent the market from being the main source of the outbreak. There's no evidence for any other source.