The considerable, if circumstantial, evidence of a Wuhan lab leak

To believe that the COVID-19 pandemic was simply a natural outbreak of a virus found in bats in the mineshaft in Yunnan Province, you have to believe that SARS-CoV-2 infected someone in Yunnan who was asymptomatic or exhibited symptoms so mild that they did not elicit concern. (While different studies show slightly different figures, around 30 percent of people with COVID-19 never develop symptoms.) That theoretically infected person, Patient Zero, would have had to either immediately leave for Wuhan, or everyone he interacted with in Yunnan Province before his departure would also have been asymptomatic or exhibited symptoms so mild that they did not elicit concern. Patient Zero would have had to make a 21-hours-at-minimum trip to Wuhan, and either not infect anyone else along the way, or everyone else he interacted with would have needed to be within that asymptomatic minority — and every one of those people he interacted with would also have needed to be within that asymptomatic minority, and so on. After completing the journey and not infecting anyone, Patient Zero would have had to interact with someone in Wuhan, who would then have exhibited symptoms and spread it to others, and the pandemic would have been off and running. That scenario is not impossible, but it stretches credulity. Recall that the six miners who went into the mineshaft all eventually exhibited serious symptoms.