Is the Wuhan Coronavirus a Bioweapon?

The Coronavirus which thus far has been reported by the Government of China to have killed hundreds of people in Wuhan and surrounding Chinese cities, appears to have been genetically engineered. Specifically, though resembling a Corona virus from bats, it has what appear to be genome inserts from the HIV virus.

A newly published BioRxiv paper by Pradhan et al., entitled: Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag. Specifically, they report:

We found 4 insertions in the spike glycoprotein (S) which are unique to the 2019-nCoV and are not present in other coronaviruses. Importantly, amino acid residues in all the 4 inserts have identity or similarity to those in the HIV-1 gp120 or HIV-1 Gag. Interestingly, despite the inserts being discontinuous on the primary amino acid sequence, 3D-modelling of the 2019-nCoV suggests that they converge to constitute the receptor binding site. The finding of 4 unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV, all of which have identity /similarity to amino acid residues in key structural proteins of HIV-1 is unlikely to be fortuitous in nature.

If the virus is a product of genetic engineering, the person responsible may be Dr. Peng Zhou of the Wuhan Institute of Virology where he is Leader of the Bat Virus Infection and Immunization Group.

That the Coronavirus epidemic is due to the deliberate release, or accidental escape, of a bioweapon, or that Dr. Peng Zhou has anything to do with the creation of a bioweapon, is on the evidence available, mere a surmise and may be entirely false.

Related: 
Zero Hedge: Did China's Tencent Accidentally Leak The True Terrifying Coronavirus Statistics
Zero Hedge: Creator Of US BioWeapons Act Says Coronavirus Is Biological Warfare Weapon
Whitney Webb: Bats, Gene Editing and Bioweapons: Recent Darpa Experiments Raise Concerns Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
GreatGameIndia: Dr. Francis Boyle Creator Of BioWeapons Act Says Coronavirus Is Biological Warfare Weapon
Zero Hedge: 20 French Evacuees From Wuhan Exhibit Symptoms
The Lancet: Forecasting the spread of novel CoronaVirus
Investment Watch: Model for Novel Coronavirus infection rate outside China
Whitney Webb: Bats, Gene Editing and Bioweapons: Recent DARPA Experiments Raise Concerns Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
EndoftheAmericanDream: The Number Of Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Is 236 Times Higher Than It Was 2 Weeks Ago