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. (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 a period of evolution within the human host.
That person 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 so illogical that we can safely dismiss it. See reasoning below.
Evidence
RaTG13, the closest relative, was collected from the caves in Yunnan.
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.
Problems 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.
* Some western scientists (with massive CCP COIs) put forward the theory of an intermediate species, namely pangolin. They claim that a bat from Yunnan vicinity somehow infected a pangolin-host from Malaysia (1000s of kms away) which somehow underwent 50 years of evolution in the space of its trip to the market (where it suffered 100% fatality rate - not good for any bug looking to cause a world-wide outbreak) in Wuhan (more 1000s of kms away), which then infected patient zero at the Nan Hua Seafood Market - where no bats or pangolin were sold. We can safely dismiss this theory as being impossible due to the logistics outlined above. (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 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 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.