zlacker

To be fair, their isn't any evidence for any explanation how COVID happened. The only thing we know is that gene splicing isn't involved, it's a genetically 'natural' variant. All other theories about what happened, including it's origin, is unsatisfactory at best.

Some Chinese I talk to think it's not from Wuhan, but rural China, and got confused with flu there, and since no one care about them [0].

If the virus circulated two months in rural China and the local authorities only detected it once it got in a big city, that's a big indictment against the CCP. Like a virus breaking out of a lab would be. But we have no evidence of either, and I'm not ready to choose between the two.

[0] China biggest issue is its countryside away from the coast, it's terrible there. less addict than in WV for sure, but tribes of 'abandoned' kids that makes 'lord of the fly' seems like a documentary. Since rural China population curve looks like a U (all the working age adults work for months in the city and come back twice a year, leaving their old parents or sometimes grandparents take care of the kid), and COVID was so hard on the elderly, post COVID it seems you have villages with two adults for 50 kids, and maybe worse.

>>orwin+(OP)
I wouldn't say it's proven one way or the other but you can cite evidence on both sides, like in favour of a zoonotic origin, the previous SARS outbreak and other viruses have been zoonotic, there were cases near the wet market. In favour of lab, it's a bit of a coincidence that a novel form or SARS popped up near the number one lab in the world researching such stuff, and in a way that could be easily explained by research proposed by Ralph Baric, the no 1 researcher of such stuff who proposed such research in collaboration with the Wuhan lab.

My guess is that although a grant application for Baric's research was turned down, the Wuhan lab went ahead and did it anyway and had a screw up.

Evidence doesn't have to mean proven beyond all doubt.

>>tim333+u2
What I meant that we only have circumstantial evidence, not hard evidence, so any explanation will be about beliefs, not about facts.