Is it possible to tell if the covid-19 virus was man made?

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if you're asking this in order to write a movie script then one could imagine something like what you're talking about, but it wouldnt be quite like what you're talking about.

You wouldnt have some individual mixing up vaccines in their bath tub ( like "bathtub gin" of the Prohibition Era, or even like this rapeseed oil/olive oil treatment).

What you would have would be the Mayo Clinic, or something like that, making the breakthrough, and creating a version of a working vaccine. But the vaccine for some reason wouldnt be able to be mass produced in gigantic quantities, until some further chemical breakthrough was made. So there might be a months long interim period in which the vaccine exists, but its not available to the public. But maybe elite individuals would get it (like the President, or elite healthcare workers). But conceivably some schmuck in your story has the right connections to get a vaccine through...your putative "back channels" by spending enough cash. So it could happen, but not quite the way you envision it.

It's already been written.  The White Plague is a 1982 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert that explores madness and revenge on a global scale.

PLOT

When an IRA terrorist car bomb explodes, the wife and children of molecular biologist John Roe O'Neill are indiscriminately killed on May 20, 1996.  Driven halfway insane by loss, his mind fragments into several personalities that carry out his plan for him.  He plans a gendercidal revenge and creates a plague that kills only women, but for which men are the carriers.  O'Neill then releases it in Ireland (for supporting the terrorists), England (for oppressing the Irish and giving them a cause), and Libya (for training said terrorists); he demands that the governments of the world send all citizens of those countries back to their countries, and that they quarantine those countries and let the plague run its course, so they will lose what he has lost; if they do not, he has more plagues to release.

After releasing the plague, he goes to Ireland to hide, planning to offer his services as a molecular biologist in the hopes of sabotaging whatever work is done there on finding a cure.  When he arrives in Ireland, he is suspected of being O'Neill (whom the investigatory agencies of the world have deduced is responsible).  To travel to the lab at Killaloe, he is forced to walk with a priest, a boy who has taken a vow of silence due to the death of his mother, and Joseph Herity, the IRA bomber who detonated the explosive that killed O'Neill's wife and children; their purpose is to confirm his identity, either through Herity's indirect questioning, or the possibility that he will confess to the priest when confronted with the pain his revenge has caused for the boy.

Meanwhile, law and order have broken down in England and Ireland, and the old Irish ways are coming back.  Local IRA thugs appoint themselves "kings of old", and others recreate ancient Celtic pagan religions centered on the rowan tree.  The IRA has effective control of Ireland, but as the governments of the world grow certain that O'Neill is there and essentially in custody, they consider wiping out the three targeted countries to end the lingering threat...

Source: This Wikipedia Article.

So if the corona virus was not man-made then like some people believe, is it even possible for man to create a virus, or would it be like man trying to invent an all new plant for example, and it's just not possible?

Synthetic Virology @ Wikipedia

Oh okay thanks. What are some man-made viruses then? Are there any known ones?

I think you're looking for man-made & released into the wild, but you hadn't specified.

Anyway, here's How does gene therapy work? to explain one use.

Well this woman here, claims that she knows that it is man made for sure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFlqXPl_hZQ

But if other scientists who have less stake in it, saying that it was made by nature, could it be that this woman is just saying this to try to grab headlines? Or does she not have any reason to lie really?

The number of base pair changes from the viruses claimed to be the backbone mutated into Sars-CoV-2 and the time taken to have such changes occur and be selected is far longer than the time available.

it also appears to be the case that some who make the claim have an existing grudge against, for example China, and may ake the assertion with less than good intent and a high degree of cherry picking data to attempt to support the assertion.

On the other hand, the existence of of numerous viruses in animals sucha s Bats which could cross over into humans is well documented by such scientific bodies as Eco health Alliance.

Here is one discussion among well informed scientists on the assertion of Sars-CoV-2 being human made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBQplOe8-LE

Oh okay, well if it was man-made what would be the motive for making it?

It's highly unlikely to be manmade, but you're asking what would the motive be if it WERE manmade?

Got me.

A nation that makes a virus that behaved the way that covid-19 did would have hurt the country that invented it as much as it would hurt any rival nations. Its spreads around the globe, and hits every country. So it would hit your country too. And disrupts the global economy including the economy of whatever country that you fictionally cast in the role of the one that invented it.

You could postulate that some "non state actor" had a lab and was able to concoct the virus. Thats its like Al Queda doing terrorism. Trouble is that even non state terrorists would need help from a government to afford hiring lab scientists and labs to make the thing. And then you would have the same problem. The disease is blind to creed and religion. If Jihadists, say, invented it the virus went spread around and kill as many Muslims as it would kill infidels. Same with commies, or fascists, or whatever creed might spawn terrorists.

Well it's that if the Chinese invented it, what was the motive in using it in their own country as oppose to dropping the virus somewhere else? Then you are just attacking your own country first, which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

But if it's highly unlikely to be man made is Dr. Li-Meng-Yan full of crap, when she says it was?

Yep, it is *possible*.

There's already conspiracy theories about the Chinese making it as a bioweapon but it went wrong and someone got contaminated then it spread to the public.

Why did they allow the export of the disease to the globe, while they locked down their own cities?
The WHO was used for this purpose, claiming that the virus wasn't transmittable to other humans.

Hang on.
I may be mistaken here.
Maybe it isn't.
My poor memory, ya know.

Can someone confirm whether or not the virus is contagious?

Think so, not sure. Not seen anyone with it.

I remember watching a documentary a while ago about bio labs that was pretty interesting, they were basically saying it's dangerous how pretty much anyone can mess about and create a super virus just randomly cause there's lots of these labs dotted about for random people to just use. Not sure how true this is but it made me think of Rick and Morty.

Well it's just why invent a supervirus as a bioweapon unless it could kill more people? For example if the goal was to commit a terrorist act, then wouldn't making some nerve gas make more sense, rather than a type of flu virus that doesn't actually kill as many people compared to nerve gas?