Everyone is focused on the genetics of the virus, but honestly that doesn't really tell us anything about how it was introduced into the human population. Frankly someone could have been legitimately studying the virus which was was circulating naturally in the bat community, with zero intention of trying to weaponize the virus, but anyone with access could have easily stolen some of the virus and deliberately infected themselves or someone else.
I read an article on December 13 or 14 of 2019 about a 20 cases of a "strange new flu" circulating in Wuhan. When the Chinese publicly admitted they had a problem at the end of December, they said they only had a handful of cases.
Finding 20 cases of a 'new flu' that has the same symptoms as the regular flu is impossible, there wasn't a test available for months, so the Chinese would have had no way to identify a 'new flu' at the time of infection.
There is only 3 ways for the health officials to know they have a 'new flu' circulating based on cases:
1) There are significantly more cases of the flu circulating than during a peak year. 2) There are significantly more flu deaths relative to the number of patients. 3) The cases have significantly different symptoms than the regular flu.
None of these situation was present for Wuhan during the early days of the virus. So that means the Chinese needed some other way to identify that they had a new flu circulating, and identify it with so few cases. Even when the COVID19 was peaking in China they still didn't have enough cases that would be significantly higher than the number of flu cases they would have during the same period.
A deliberate release or an accidental lab release is the only real way to know that a 'new flu' is circulating, when there are so few cases, and symptoms that are identical to the flu.
I believe the Chinese were studying the virus, and then due to an accident, or just sloppy lab work, even in China the lab techs are overworked and underpaid, someone got infected. Knowing human nature, the person who had the accident or was sloppy tried to cover up what happened, because they didn't want to lose their job. Unfortunately the person was infected, and maybe became ill, they also spread the infection into the community. At some point the person who originally got infected was forced to admit their mistake, either because they were sick, or because people they knew were getting sick, and trying to cover what happened became impossible.
Once the Chinese government learned of the accident/sloppy lab work it would be really easy to do contact tracing and identify a handful of cases, it would also be really easy to tell the world that that virus started in the wet market, because those markets have already been idenified as a potential risk for a pandemic level virus.
If you disagree with my opinion, that's fine but please explain how the Chinese could possibly know they had a new virus/flu circulating, with almost no data, cases, deaths, or novel symptoms. They knew because it was a accidental lab release, that's how they knew.
To me, the most likely explanation is that one or more researchers became ill or died and WIV triggered the release protocol. This isn't the fault of PRC but this plus the treatment of Uigher, illegal fishing, IP theft etc. Can we just say F China as this point and bring our manufacturing back to the US and its allies? China has good people but their government shouldnt be allowed superpower status given their transgressions.