RaTG13 wasn't exactly "lying around." The Wuhan Institute of Virology searches out and catalogs bat coronaviruses. They have a "library" of a few hundred frozen

RaTG13 wasn't exactly "lying around." The Wuhan Institute of Virology searches out and catalogs bat coronaviruses. They have a "library" of a few hundred frozen viruses. Most of them probably receive very little in-depth study after initial categorization. > Nor are the Chinese authorities very open to international collaboration on this matter. The Wuhan Institute of Virology actually engages in a large amount of international collaboration. The international collaborators of the WIV (among them are some of the most prominent coronavirus and emerging infectious diseases researchers), in the United States and elsewhere, have been defending the institute against the various conspiracy theories circulating online (and being promoted by the US President). The researchers at the WIV receive training at national labs in the US, France and Australia. In other words, the WIV is tightly hooked into the international research community. It's not some secretive place that the outside world can't peer into. > possibly carried by a different species, that brought the disease to Wuhan SARS and MERS were both transmitted to humans through an intermediate host species. It's reasonable to believe that SARS-CoV-2 also went through an intermediate host. It's also not certain that the initial spillover occurred in Wuhan. It could easily have begun in the countryside and only blown up when someone brought it to Wuhan, which is a major transportation hub.