[XorNot]

This presumes COVID-19 had to evolve in the place people are looking for possible coronaviruses and had to jump directly from bats to people, and not in surrounding or isolated areas where the bats might roam. Or that their wasn't - as is suspected now - one or several interim species.

SARS after all was found in civets, and then later several other species as well despite originating in bats.

[krrrh]

It doesn’t presume that it had to, it just conjectures that it is either more likely or not significantly less likely than the scenarios you listed.

We can’t rule it out, ie. we only have evidence right now to try to make a determination based on the preponderance of evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. The story that is emerging is that we may never be able to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt because the debate was quashed for a year by political concerns, institutional biases, and motivated reasoning.