zlacker

Surely passage in human cell culture or in mice genetically engineered to express human ACE2 would also create that selection pressure in the lab? If SARS-CoV-2 was manipulated in the lab, that's the usual explanation I've seen given for that affinity.

Mink seem very unlikely to me, since I've seen papers reporting evidence of host adaptation on mink farms:

https://academic.oup.com/ve/article/7/1/veaa094/6025194

So if the virus first evolved in mink, it would have to have evolved enough in humans not just to favor human ACE2 but also to lose its affinity for mink (to the point it has to regain it later), all during that couple months of cryptic spread.

And do you really think China is doing a bad job looking for the intermediate host? I don't think that's impossible--for example, the true origin could be some agricultural practice so horrible that they consider the present uncertainty better than disclosing that. Lab origin has become strongly associated with anti-China political sentiment, though. (That seems stupid to me, considering that the USA was funding the WIV; but here we are.) So I'd be surprised that the CCP would pass up a chance to disprove that.