[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

As it stands right now, as best I can understand, they have no idea that the Virus originated in bats, southern or northern, just that it resembles some virus's they have found in bats, nor do they know if the transmission agent is pangolin, be it African or Asian Pangolin (there are native Asian pangolins, which is presumably why they have become a delicacy) just that the virus has some elements that suggest Pangolin.

This isn't entirely accurate, through genetic sequencing scientists know this came from bats in southern in China (it's the same evidence used to show that it's a natural virus). This is the same population of bats that the researcher from the institute, who's nickname was "batwoman", went in to try and find new coronaviruses, that was the main thrust of her research.

What they do know is the virus shows no evidence at all, to the degree they are certain it was naturally occurring, that it was genetically manipulated virus, nor has it been 'seen' before, hence the noval description.

Correct, which coincidentally was what batwoman and the institute specialized in, novel bat coronaviruses. They were seeking out what eventually cropped up in the population of the city their lab was in.

Of course you are right maybe it was some virus they found in the wild and decided to study secretly, but then the lab in Wuhan wasn't some secret lab and it would be the last place the Chinese would study a secret virus, the place was overrun with various scientists from all over the world, the very fact we know so much about this lab is because the rest of the world's virologists hang out there complaining about their safety standards, would seem to preclude it being the center of secret research, which is why the many western virologists that studied there are saying it didn't come from the lab, their argument seems to be that they knew what the lab was studying and would have noticed a wholly new virus, it just wasn't a top secret lab like that.

I really don't think you can say the place was overrun with scientists like it was some big clubhouse hangout, and then to stretch that even further to say that there's nothing an emerging superpower like China would keep secret is too much. The scientists quoted in Fuzz's link never professed to having first hand knowledge of the lab or batwomans work, the one guy's quote was this.

"Even if it is difficult to prove that a laboratory accident did not take place, you should know that SARS-CoV-2 is not closely related to any previous viruses; it was never sequenced (even partially) in previous studies, and the COVID-19 outbreak began in November/December, as in previous SARS epidemic events (2002 and 2003)."

He's just talking in generics about this never being sequenced before, not that he knows for a fact he saw every various in China's top bio lab and COVID doesn't match those. Bringing up the dates also seems completely irrelevant. Like I said, it's not proof positive of anything except that there were no published papers on this virus.