Hadn’t crossed my mind, because I’m still assuming it ultimately came via a bat research project. But now that you bring it up… I ddg “are bats and mice close c

Hadn’t crossed my mind, because I’m still assuming it ultimately came via a bat research project. But now that you bring it up… I ddg “are bats and mice close cousins” and get a reference to moving a bat coronavirus into mice: > Eloit’s team plans to put BANAL-236 into “humanized” mice and possibly monkeys to see whether it can cause disease > The BANAL isolates join a growing list of bat coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 [found all over the place] > The BANAL isolates, like all close relatives of SARS-CoV-2, are missing a signature component of the pandemic virus known as the furin cleavage site https://www.science.org/content/article/close-cousins-sars-cov-2-found-cave-laos-yield-new-clues-about-pandemic-s-origins https://www.science.org/content/article/close-cousins-sars-c... [Edit: IMO] So bat-sourced, transferred to mice for further investigation, and accidentally transferred to human is a very plausible pathway. All it would take is a furin cleavage event turning it into super-measles, a mouse sneeze or a carelessly handled dead mouse, and a handler is not wearing googles or the mask isn’t well-fitted, and all of a sudden we’re living in a Crichton or King novel. Wouldn’t be the first dangerous bio lab leak, unlikely to be the last.