> How do you "admit" something unknown? Either way we know it couldn't have been too much before November/December, considering everything we know about how fast it spreads.

Actually, this is not so clear. The evidence of community cases in November/December in e.g. France were not picked up at the time either. There is a phase were a new disease can fly completely under the radar, because we are still in a very slow growth and only see a few isolated cases, which often don't even get seen by the same health professionals. This is particularly true in the case of covid were there is evidence that spreading is disproportionately from "superspreaders" (unless some of that information changed now?). So unless there was a superspreader, you only have few isolated cases.

It wasn't completely under the radar though. Doctors in China were thinking it was a "mere" SARS outbreak, which was fairly close to correct. However concern about public health was not the top priority of the govt.

If that's the case then China doesn't even have anything to admit, it could have come Frome anywhere.

Everything points at Wuhan currently. That’s not even a question at this point

Taiwan was pretty sure there was human to human transmission on Dec 31, 2019 after their secretary of health had been in Wuhan for a week or so, so China most likely had figured it out at least a month earlier. Maybe they hid it because were too busy jailing doctors?