Now, I believe that the claim about Italy was a bit tongue in cheek but at the same time it is reasonable based on facts and should be thought provoking:
We now know that there were cases of Covid-19 in Italy and France, and perhaps US iirc, at the same time, and perhaps before, the outbreak around that market in Wuhan, as early as November. (So, yes the virus did stealthily traverse continents, by the way)
Now, based on that why would the origin necessarily be Wuhan? Logically, the earlier the cases the closer they are from origin.
The origin of infectious diseases is always tricky to establish. After years we're still not sure about the origin of MERS and possibly SARS. It took decades to pinpoint that HIV appeared in the 1920s, almost 60 years before it can to the world's attention.
While it is still most likely that Covid-19 arose in China we do not know where and when.
Can you provide a peer-reviewed source that documents this timeline, you claim "established facts" but to my knowledge there aren't any?
> While it is still most likely that Covid-19 arose in China we do not know where and when.
On that we can both agree.
In Italy people were contaminated even earlier than that, apparently [4].
These are not wholly surprising because, again it is likely that the virus had been circulating for some time in humans before it exploded and was detected. It is quite contagious but many people do not experience any symptoms or only mild, common symptoms, which IMO makes it relatively easy to go undetected until it goes out out of hands, as it did in Wuhan first.
It's good to ask for proof but then you should ask for proof of all claims, not only the ones you do not like.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52526554
[2] https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-report...
[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-evidence-race-find-fr...
[4] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-...
In France; December 2019: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7196402/
> His previous experience has shown that such antibody tests for the coronavirus' RBD can create a lot of false positives, Rutherford told Live Science. And because this is "such an unexpected finding," it should be confirmed with other antibody tests such as those that look for antibodies against another one of the coronavirus' proteins, an outer coat called a "nucleocapsid," which is also unique to the novel coronavirus, he said.
> Still, "it's not totally outside the realm of possibility," that the virus circulated in Italy earlier than thought. because there is a lot of travel back and forth between China and Italy, especially northern Italy, he said. But considering the earliest COVID-19 case in Wuhan was reported to be in November, "it really gives me pause to say let's really make sure we got this right before we try and explain it," Rutherford said. [0]
[0] https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-circulating-italy-ea...
I'm puzzled by your attitude and unclear about your aim but you do what you want.
Seems like you are trying to ridicule me just because you disagree with me.
'Wuhan Institute of Virology' (China's only BSL4 lab) is less than 14km from 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market'.
The 'Wuhan Centre for Disease Prevention & Control' is 1.4 km from the 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market'.
Both are public institutions with published research on both virus classification and gain of function experiments.
This is circunstancial evidence. Unlike the previous origin investigation for SARS-Cov1, there has been little transparence or effort to investigate the origin of SARS-Cov2.
Let's agree to disagree. If indeed the origin is a Southern China zoonotic event, which then happened to have a superspreader event in Wuhan, then it is in the interest of the Chinese government to investigate this and disclose this evidence to dissolve international doubts and concerns.