None of your links identifies a "consensus on the true origin" you claimed. Instead you highlight multiple recent open questions that indicate there is no conse

None of your links identifies a "consensus on the true origin" you claimed. Instead you highlight multiple recent open questions that indicate there is no consensus. The claim it escaped from a lab is not a contradiction with a bat-based origin; in fact, emphasizing all the research evidence tying SARS-CoV2 to bat strains already sequenced years ago in China – like RaTG13 – makes the outbreak's connection to prior research more plausible. The November 2020 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science article, by Stanford & Veterans Administration Doctor/Professor David A Relman, in the comment to which you are replying (https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246), lays out the mainstream understanding very well, and it leaves oven 3 main possibilities: > There are several potential origin scenarios. First, SARS-CoV-2 may have evolved in bats, which are known reservoirs of immense coronavirus diversity (2), and then spread directly, or indirectly via an intermediate host, to humans through natural mechanisms. The degree of anticipated but undiscovered natural diversity clearly lends support to this scenario, as well as support to other scenarios. Second, SARS-CoV-2 or a recent ancestor virus may have been collected by humans from a bat or other animal and then brought to a laboratory where it was stored knowingly or unknowingly, propagated and perhaps manipulated genetically to understand its biological properties, and then released accidentally. … > The third scenario, seemingly much less likely, involves laboratory manipulation or release, with the clear intention of causing harm. … > Even though strong opinions abound, none of these scenarios can be confidently ruled in or ruled out with currently available facts.