zlacker

Everything that I've read suggests the bats from which the virus likely originated can only be found hundreds of kilometers away, so it must have been brought into Wuhan somehow. Either for food, or for research, unless you can propose another explanation?

> The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from the seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees. But the seafood market is in a densely-populated district of Wuhan, a metropolitan of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the bats to fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market.

Source: https://archive.is/r4Yac

Now, I don't suggest that the virus was created in the lab, or deliberately leaked. But it had to be brought into Wuhan somehow. I just don't consider it dismissible, yet, that an inadvertent leak from the lab could have been the cause. I look forward to all new evidence that may emerge.

If the market was indeed the cause, then in the interests of global safety, wild animal markets of this nature should be prohibited.

>>SpaceR+(OP)
With asymptomatic transmission the virus likely would have spread unnoticed in the town that was encroaching on bats for a while before someone brought it to Wuhan.

>>SpaceR+(OP)
The first SARS started out with a traveler - what's to rule out that this time it wasn't spreading asymptomatically in other regions and brought into Wuhan by a traveler?

>>rcpt+m5
What makes that equally or more likely?

The concentration of early cases in Wuhan, hundreds of kilometers of away, would imply that the asymptomatic traveler(s) only traveled to one city, and didn't infect any other people along the way.

It's possible, but you have to consider the probability of all these events, hence the Bayesian analysis performed here.

>>rcpt+m5
Highly unlikely given the distances involved. This would be the equivalent of a disease found in bats native to northern Ohio somehow breaking out down the road from the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, with no other cities or towns showing traces of breakouts prior.