We don't know. That's the point. Very strange that the science establishment is adamant that they
do know, specifically they
do know it was zoonotic, even if they also admit they have no scientific evidence for such statements. What is a scientist supposed do, absent scientific evidence?
Seek for evidence.
OTOH, there is the furin cleavage site issue. Have your read the OA?!
> Since the genetic code of the coronavirus that caused the pandemic was first sequenced, scientists have puzzled over the “furin cleavage site.” This strange feature on the spike protein of the virus had never been seen in SARS-related betacoronaviruses, the class to which SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the respiratory illness Covid-19, belongs.
> Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University who has espoused the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab, agreed. “The relevance of this is that SARS Cov-2, the pandemic virus, is the only virus in its entire genus of SARS-related coronaviruses that contains a fully functional cleavage site at the S1, S2 junction,” said Ebright, referring to the place where two subunits of the spike protein meet. “And here is a proposal from the beginning of 2018, proposing explicitly to engineer that sequence at that position in chimeric lab-generated coronaviruses.”
* None of the known coronaviruses closely related to covid have such a feature. There is a lot of FUD in this space, which amounts to saying: Horses and seals are mammals, seals have flippers, therefore that horse with flippers you just saw has occurred naturally. Those stallions might have been quite horny.
* The OA 2018 grant proposes to perform gain of function work and create a FCS in SARS viruses at WIH. This research proposal has not been publicly disclosed by scientists that supposedly are investigating covid origin. WTF?
* The OA 2018 grant proposal mentions a database of 180 coronaviruses that are not publicly disclosed to this day. Apparently WIH stopped publishing coronavirus sequences after 2015. WTF? https://twitter.com/franciscodeasis/status/14160891976650014...
The closer relatives of covid without a FCS at the S1/S2 junction we find, the more damning for the WIH and their American friends. And perhaps we'll find the genetic ancestors of covid in the wild, and the WIH (proposed) work might have been a bizzarre coincidence. We don't know. But the stonewalling and the sneering at the public asking legitimate questions must stop.