[T-A]

The fact that the virus emerged already well adapted to human cells is a primary reason to suspect something's off. How could it be so well adapted right after making the jump to humans? And why have no closely related precursors been found in the wild?

A hypothesis which addresses both questions is that the virus evolved in humanized mice. That would also explain why it doesn't look genetically engineered; it wasn't, the mice were.

[sudosysgen]

Because it wasn't. It evolved to become this way. But on the path to this evolution it was not anything of note and no one would notice it.

[T-A]

Nobody noticed the precursors to SARS and MERS either, until those emerged in humans. But once they did, the precursors were quickly found in civets and camels, respectively.

A reminder: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/26/1021263/bat-covi...

[sudosysgen]

It took half a decade for SARS. It wasn't immediate by any stretch of the imagination.

[T-A]

> It took half a decade for SARS. It wasn't immediate by any stretch of the imagination.

It took less than a year from outbreak to publication:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/302/5643/276