[skipkey]

For me, the primary evidence of lab origin has always been statistical in nature. I have read that there are thousands of wet markets across Asia. So when Covid shows up at one near an institute studying similar viruses instead of one of the thousands of other wet markets, Occam’s razor says it came from there. When we can’t find source animals nearby zoonotic origin requires a much more complex chain of events.

My assumption from close to the beginning has been that most likely, some low-level employee at the institute considered it a job perk to take animals he was supposed to have euthanized and cremated and sell them to a vendor at a market he had connections to for a few yuan.

Does this prove lab origin? No. But barring compelling evidence otherwise it makes lab origin the most likely cause.

[shusaku]

The danger here is the birthday paradox. If it emerged at some other wet market, we would be attaching significance to some other city landmark to drive our alternate hypothesis.