Theory 1: Natural Origin

Mojiang Mine Natural Origin Theory

Someone in the vicinity of the mine was infected through an interaction with an infected bat, or from collecting batshit.

No bats (or pangolin) were sold at Nan Hua Seafood Market - all but ruling out the wet-market theory (we'll get to the all-but soon).  Therefore: if a zoonotic-crossover happened, it happened to a person in the Yunnan area - who travelled to Wuhan.

(Edit: In Sep '21 RaTG13 (96.3%) was beaten by BANAL-52 (96.8%), which was found in Laos, which borders Yunnan province.  100-odd ks away,  So same area.   Exact same area in which the WIV/EHA Virus Hunters were compulsively hunting for their holy-grail - a bat virus genome that could either directly infect humans, or close enough, so it could be souped up in the Bat-Lab to become infectious to humans  Making it the same logic:  infected person still has to travel 1000 kilometres-plus (940 miles) to get to Wuhan - and nowhere else.)

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

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

*Note: The idea of an intermediate species, namely pangolin, was pushed by Nature Medicine but it's illogical.  We can safely dismiss it.  See reasoning below.

Evidence

RaTG13, the closest relative to Covid, was collected from the Mojiang cave in Yunnan.  (Banal-52 was same area, just across the border in Laos). 

Theory:  If a bat-virus in nature that close to Covid exists, then it's possible an exact match exists.

How to investigate

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

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.  (That's how they came up with Banal-52 - by testing every bat in sight)

Problems with Scenario 1:

1. Given we can be pretty sure Chinese authorities would have already done the above, 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 in Mojiang? 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.

* Some western scientists (with massive CCP COIs) put forward the theory of an intermediate species, pangolin.  They claim that a bat from Yunnan vicinity somehow infected a pangolin-host smuggled into Guangdong (1000+ ks away) from Malaysia (1000s of ks away).  On the pangolin's journey to market to a Seafood market in Wuhan (more 1000s of kms away), it miraculously underwent 50 years of evolution!  Sadly, the pangolin-hosts then suffered 100% fatality rate at the market - not good-going for any virus looking to cause a world-wide outbreak in humans.   Despite all these obstacles, it then infected patient-zero at the Nan Hua Seafood Market - where no bats or pangolin were sold.  That's not possible.  It's good evidence of academic fraud, but doesn't get us closer to our goal:  the Origin of Covid.  (Edit: After this was written, FOI emails revealed that even the authors of the Pangolin Paper didn't believe it - they thought Covid looks engineered - the paper was purpose-written as cover-up disinformation)

Conclusion

It's unlikely, but it's not impossible. If patient-zero travelled directly from the Mojiang cave (or Laos) to Wuhan, 1000+ks away, not infecting anyone else along the way, 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 the origin window down to 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.