Mojiang Mine Natural Origin Theory

Someone in the vicinity of the mine was infected through an interaction with an infected bat. (No bats (or pangolin) were sold at Nan Hua Seafood Market)

(Edit: In Sep 21 RaTG13 (96.3%) was beaten by BANAL-52 (96.8%) found in Laos. But it's the same logic - still has to travel 1000 kilometres-plus to get to Wuhan - and nowhere else.)

The virus was either ready to roll or may have undergone an undetected period of evolution within the human host.

That person could then have travelled to Wuhan thereby causing the outbreak.

Evidence

RaTG13, the closest relative, was collected from there.

How to investigate

1. Blitz test bats in the Mojiang mine area (which is the exact same area that was reportedly home to the bats that caused SARS-1). You were doing that before Covid so just redouble your efforts.

2. Test those humans living in the immediate vicinity of the mine. Or anyone who has been in the mine collecting viruses for research purposes.
3. Contract trace the first known cases in Wuhan to establish whether they had travelled from the Mojiang area or had close contact with someone from there.

Degree of difficulty:

None of that is complicated. It’s almost certainly been done already.

Problem with Scenario 1:

1. Given we can be pretty sure Chinese authorities would have already done the above testing, it’s a reasonable assumption we would know the results if it turned up anything that cleared WIV.

2. Why was there no outbreak at the site of the infection? It’s possible that the infected humans living in the immediate vicinity of the cave may have already developed an immunity (which could be easily checked through an antibody test) but there still should have been some sign of contagion in more populous areas of Yunnan.

Conclusion

It's unlikely, but it's not impossible. If 'patient-zero' travelled directly from the bat cave to Wuhan, 1000km away, probably by car, thereby not infecting anyone else, then stayed in Wuhan for two weeks or more ... it's theoretically doable.

On the positive side, being a small probability field, it's easy to prove one way or the other: trace the shit out of it.
If you're a totalitarian regime that's big on surveillance, you're tooled up - it's not like you're gonna have privacy rights qualms.
The first reported case is mid-Nov. We know it's highly contagious - the 'lying dormant for years' theory doesn't make sense - this virus hit the ground running. There'd have been a period where people wouldn't have twigged - it's similar to the flu - so you'd expect that - but it's explosive by nature - so maybe a month before that?
So go ahead - use your high-tech-totalitarianism to trace it back to those first cases - let's say it is early/mid-October (though i'd bow to the CCP's intel on that)- now you've got to the origin window within a week or two.

Cross reference that with those locals in close contact with bats in the Yunnan area (including WIV/EcoHealth bat collectors) who travelled to Wuhan in that timeframe - bingo - you've got your origin. Case solved.