> The best info we have is that it wasn't a bio lab release, just an unusual transmission from wild bats to humans in a wild animal market
That's not my understanding at all. My understanding is that there are two competing theories, neither of which there is categorical evidence for:
1. A bat coronavirus jumped to an unrelated species (e.g. pangolins) that were sold at the wet market. Which then jumped again to humans. But we have not been able to find a close viral match in the intermediate animal population.
2. A bat coronavirus was accidentally leaked from a lab that was known (they have published papers on the topic) to be studying and actively mutating in gain of function research bat coronaviruses.
To me 2 is much more likely. The idea that the epicentre of a coronavirus epidemic was ~100m from the only lab in China that studies these coronaviruses, but that the source wasn't the lab is preposterous. It's possible, but it seems like far too much of a coincidence to me.
That's not my understanding at all. My understanding is that there are two competing theories, neither of which there is categorical evidence for:
1. A bat coronavirus jumped to an unrelated species (e.g. pangolins) that were sold at the wet market. Which then jumped again to humans. But we have not been able to find a close viral match in the intermediate animal population.
2. A bat coronavirus was accidentally leaked from a lab that was known (they have published papers on the topic) to be studying and actively mutating in gain of function research bat coronaviruses.
To me 2 is much more likely. The idea that the epicentre of a coronavirus epidemic was ~100m from the only lab in China that studies these coronaviruses, but that the source wasn't the lab is preposterous. It's possible, but it seems like far too much of a coincidence to me.