The closest _known_. The second closest was found in Laos, also 700 miles from Wuhan (BANAL-52). Except it's in the other direction.
So we know that close cousins of CoV-2 are pretty wide-spread.
> Those wet markets are huge vectors for a viral spread, so a virus being spread there doesn't necessarily mean it started there
The thing is, does it really matter? We can say with a high degree of confidence that SARS-CoV-2 was _not_ engineered. So even if the very first jump was in the lab, it was likely a result of insufficient biosecurity measures. But the virus (and its close cousins) are still out there in nature, and it's a matter of time until a new spillover happens.
The closest _known_. The second closest was found in Laos, also 700 miles from Wuhan (BANAL-52). Except it's in the other direction.
So we know that close cousins of CoV-2 are pretty wide-spread.
> Those wet markets are huge vectors for a viral spread, so a virus being spread there doesn't necessarily mean it started there
The thing is, does it really matter? We can say with a high degree of confidence that SARS-CoV-2 was _not_ engineered. So even if the very first jump was in the lab, it was likely a result of insufficient biosecurity measures. But the virus (and its close cousins) are still out there in nature, and it's a matter of time until a new spillover happens.