> Pangolins and bats don't usually cohabitate, making this somewhat unlikely in nature.
Horseshoe bats are nocturnal animals that roost in caves during the day but sometimes practice perch feeding at night [1]:
> The other strategy is known as perch feeding: Individuals roost on feeding perches and wait for prey to fly past, then fly out to capture it.
Pangolins [2] and palm civets [3] are nocturnal and arboreal. The bat viral RNA sequences come from anal swabs of netted animals so they are primarily gastrointestinal infections. All of these animals are found in the Lancang/Mekong [4] catch basin. Bat guano seems like a good vector for the virus.
Gain-of-function experiments require two viral isolates that recombine during passage. The lab theory assumes that the RNA sequence of the original viral isolates were never shared. I find this scenario unlikely but I am open to changing my mind based on evidence. SARS-1 is evidence of a very similar zoonotic scenario.
Humans that encounter bat guano in this region also seem like a good host for a recombination event.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_bat#Diet_and_foragin...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin#Behavior
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_palm_civet#Feeding_and_d...
So are you proposing that a pangolin from Lancang was transported more than 2000km to a seafood wetmarket in Wuhan?
At face value, this sounds like a very unlikely scenario for a zoonotic event/origin.
[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/coronavir...
Likewise, Italy contained the virus from May to September, then it exploded again. Nothing particularly happened in September, yet by chance it spiked.
Just speculating though, I’d like to hear others’ opinion on this thought.
There is no direct air flight from Italy to Wuhan without going through Amsterdam Schipol or Beijing. There are no Shipping ports in inland Wuhan.
Do you truly believe it is a realistic scenario that a virus this infectious could traverse from northern Italy to Wuhan, Hubei, without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way?
If I am to put on my tinfoil hat this is exactly the sort of disinformation I would expect from CCP propaganda in order to fight US politician memes of the "China Virus".
Assuming that Wuhan is the Orginal point of infection and there not being any previous infections spreading it to some parts of china including (or mainly) Wuhan is the actual extraordinary claim.
> There is no direct ...
Doesn't matter people travel. My sister had during that time a roommate from China from a large city without any direct flights or port or similar if that would have been Wuhan here bringing the virus to Germany before any travel restrictions started would have been well in the area of possibitly (and no joke as far as I remember it actually was Wuhan but I'm not fully sure about and no Virus was transmitted in this case it's just an example that the argument why virus transmittance is unlikely is IMHO not making much sense)
EDIT:
> without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way?
1. There where other hotspots then Wuhan.
2. Detection and reporting of SARS-Cov-2 was initially not very responsive.
3. Look at how SARS-Cov-1 spread.
4. You just need a exchange student from Wuhan to Italy.