That research presupposes that the virus came from bats to uses this to draw the conclusion that a more bat like variant found elsewhere is the origin point - however researchers know that COVID binds more tightly to human cells that both bat and pangolin, and more strongly to pangolin than bat.
“The computer modelling found the virus’s ability to bind to the bat ACE2 protein was poor relative to its ability to bind human cells. This argues against the virus being transmitted directly from bats to humans. Hence, if the virus has a natural source, it could only have come to humans via an intermediary species which has yet to be found,”
I don't think that the source I quoted was saying that the virus jumped directly from bats to humans. I believe they were attempting to track mutations from the closest currently known/sequenced genetic relative, which happened to be that bat virus.
I don't think that changes my point in bringing this up, that it is not a foregone conclusion that Wuhan was the location of the first human infections, that in fact there is some genetic evidence pointing in other directions.
> Asked if his ongoing research should quash speculation that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab, Forster is circumspect. "It's not black and white. All I can say is it doesn't look to me as if Wuhan is the prime candidate, because A exists in other regions of China at that time at possibly a higher frequency."
Full disclosure: I've be made aware of papers pointing out that Forster's methodologies may be unreliable, that the gap between bat and human viruses are too large to say definitively which varient of the human virus is older. But I don't think this materially changes the fact that his paper casts a good bit of doubt on Wuhan being the location of the first human infections, showing that there may be evidence to the contrary in his collected and sequenced genetic samples. He admits that himself in the same article:
> "I would be a bit careful about pinpointing a place (of origin), because we don't have many samples from the early phase," he says. "But it seems to me we shouldn't restrict ourselves to Wuhan when looking for the origin." [0]
The source you quote jives with what I have read in other places, that there are still missing pieces to this puzzle.
https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-find-covid-19-virus-was...
“The computer modelling found the virus’s ability to bind to the bat ACE2 protein was poor relative to its ability to bind human cells. This argues against the virus being transmitted directly from bats to humans. Hence, if the virus has a natural source, it could only have come to humans via an intermediary species which has yet to be found,”