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There's a bunch of indications / conspiracy theories that it might have been a lab leak. Basically there's not really a way to know unless the Chinese government starts being more forthcoming with information.
The main reason the conspiracy theory started is because the city where it started had a world renowned virus research facility in it.
Of course, the reason the facility is there in the first place is because Wuhan province is a place where a lot of viruses originate naturally (in bat colonies), so it makes sense you research the viruses close to their natural reservoir.
This is disingenuous. RaTG13 was sourced in Tongguan in Mojiang Hani Autonomous County 1800km from Wuhan.
I don't have any information to add one way or the other, but it kinda sounds like you're saying the fact that one bat-bourne illness was found elsewhere, it's impossible that Wuhan has many or any such viruses too, which seems pretty fallacious.
No. Its pretty fallacious to imply WIV was only looking at local bats.
The wuhan area certainty has many viruses, but none were anywhere close to the sample found 1800 km away, which WIV certainty had a copy of because they sequenced it.
I don't think anyone said they were only looking at local viri. The original comment said (emphasis mine)
So Wuhan was ideal because it's where a lot of viri originate. That doesn't imply they only looked at viri from nearby just that the location was chosen because there were so many nearby.
The prior paragraph is also important
Left on its own this implies that the lab is the source. However, the next paragraph counters that view. It erroneously implies the local area is full of bats and their species hopping coronaviruses. Not even "China's Bat Woman" thinks that is likely:-
“I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animals—particularly bats, a known reservoir.
... what? Bats are virus factories due to how their biology/immune system works. They opened a lab in Wuhan to study any novel viruses coming out of the local bat population. That's what that person is referencing. Your counter is basically a non sequitar.
My point is that the word local is both incorrect and misleading. Bats from 1800km away are not local.