Nonetheless, we know there was a close relative documented in bats on the same continent within a comparable timeframe. The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the vector, for the simple reason that this is the way every single other pandemic, human or otherwise, has happened. There is nothing unique or notable about covid from the perspective of viral evolution. Period. So Occam says we go with the simplest theory.
Attempts to wave away that fact have nothing to do with science about what was happening in Wuhan and everything to do with modern political opinions about a government 1000km away in Beijing.
Given that, as far as I know, we don't have a single human case documented before those in Wuhan - something which a) should have been likely and b) China would be highly incentivized to root out since it would disprove the lab hypothesis, it implies patient zero was probably in Wuhan. If that's true, Occam could cut the other way, since the notion that case zero of a virus making a species transition would just so happen to occur in a city with a virology lab doing research on the same kind of viruses is a bit hard to believe.
Given that coronavirus would not be observable until there is a cluster of symptomatic cases in a city (and a doctor with relevant experience who can observe multiple cases - here 李文亮), I find it highly unlikely that we could observe earlier cases, if they spread less rapidly or outside a city - or even within another city with less institutional knowledge.
> b) China would be highly incentivized to root out
Even if so, this doesn't form part of any prior. China being incentivized to act in that situation, doesn't affect how likely or unlikely that situation was.
China being incentivized to find evidence supporting the CCP's desired image absolutely does affect how likely it would be for such evidence to surface if it exists.
We see virtually no such evidence; we can assume that's not because China's lack of trying to find it; which should adjust our prior against such evidence existing at all. Yes?