Epidemiologists conducted an extensive investigation to trace the origin and also didn't find any connection whatsoever with the lab. I'm not sure why every theory that doesn't involve the lab is forced to conform to the assumption that epidemiologists know everything there is to know about the source of COVID, something epidemiologists themselves didn't claim when identifying the wet market as the initial superspreader event, most likely from animals or traders originating from unknown regions outside the city.

Of course a novel coronavirus - especially one that does not produce severe or unusual symptoms in most infected people - is more likely to be identified when it becomes established in a city where it spreads quickly to many people with access to good healthcare, not a rural area where there are fewer people and more basic healthcare which infected people are less likely to use. This is why the outbreak of the original SARS novel coronavirus was identified in an urban area 1000 miles from the suspected zoonotic source of the virus, not in the neighbouring village whose unidentified inhabitants (or animal produce) most likely transmitted it to the city. It is not me "shifting the goalposts" that you continue to pretend I didn't point that out in my first post.