That is very close to what happened. Infected lab animals which were ordered disposed of were instead covertly sold to a local exotic animals meat market.
But nearly half of the first victims had no contact with the market.
I wonder if something got poured down the wrong sink or something was misplumbed and it ended up in the river. And the animals therein. And the market by accident. Would have possibly exposed other people who were near the river, dunno.
We’ll likely never know the truth and those that did have gotten a bullet in the head.
The non market exposures could have ridden next to it on a bus, or brushed past it on the sidewalk, etc.
It’s not like all the research there was nefarious. Just ‘bad idea’ most of it. The ‘bat guy’ was doing research to see why bats didn’t get infections like we do in spite of their carrying around all sorts of evil pathogens. Which is a really good line of research. No question. useful for vaccine info or simply development of antiviral meds that might be wide spectrum.
So I don’t think the initial research was nefarious.
The coverup on the other hand...ask the mob how that goes...it’s never the crime, it’s the coverup.
Has anyone seen or heard from the bat researcher since this all began?