There's also brain eating amoebas popping up. Perhaps people of color brought that to the USA, not an effect of climate change. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/... https://www.nature.com/scitabl... I blame racial inbreeding for all of the world's problems, personally.

The New Yorkers title suggesting "origin" fails to consider several points of data that strongly suggests SARS-CoV-2 was present in Italy (primarily Lombardy) before October 2019.

From the study "Evidence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in an Oropharyngeal Swab Specimen, Milan, Italy, Early December 2019" (cited below):

We identified severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 RNA in an oropharyngeal swab specimen collected from a child with suspected measles in early December 2019, 3 months before the first identified coronavirus disease case in Italy.

...

As participants in Italy’s Measles and Rubella Network, a sensitive case-based surveillance system, we observed in Milan during late autumn 2019 cases of suspected measles in patients who eventually tested negative for measles.

From the study "Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the prepandemic period in Italy" (cited below):

SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific antibodies were detected in 111 of 959 (11.6%) individuals, starting from September 2019 (14%), with a cluster of positive cases (>30%) in the second week of February 2020 and the highest number (53.2%) in Lombardy.

From the study "SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events" (from your post):

Thereafter, a single zoonotic transmission event portends additional jumps, because all previous conditions leading up to a successful zoonotic jump have necessarily been met. For example, the reverse - zoonosis of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to minks on Dutch fur farms was followed by repeated reintroduction of SARS-CoV-2 from minks to humans (46, 47). Indeed, we can see multiple cross-species transmissions from minks to humans from a shallow genetic reservoir on multiple farms in the Netherlands (8, 46).

From the article "More athletes claim they contracted COVID-19 at Military World Games in Wuhan" (cited below):

Italian fencer Matteo Tagliarol also said everyone in his apartment in the city fell ill with symptoms "that looked like those of COVID-19".

It is far more likely that athletes infected one or more workers after visiting the Huanan market and that the worker(s) infected the animals caged in close proximity to each other. Thereafter workers on other shifts would have been infected by the animals and kick-started the mass infections throughout Wuhan and Hubei.

However tracing the virus back beyond Lombardy in September 2019 becomes hazy at best, given that we do not have intact viral specimens earlier than the Wuhan specimens.

The suggestion in the study "SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events" should be given priority over tracing the origin of SARS-CoV-2:

Our results highlight the imperative of establishing intensive virus surveillance architectures. Such architectures will involve early detection of unexplained disease in humans, but must be complemented by a focus on wild, farmed, and traded animals where the risk of transmission to humans is greatest. The ability to more rapidly identify spillovers and novel pathogens will improve our capacity to contain pathogens with pandemic potential.

Citations:

1. Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the prepandemic period in Italy
2. Evidence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in an Oropharyngeal Swab Specimen, Milan, Italy, Early December 2019
3. More athletes claim they contracted COVID-19 at Military World Games in Wuhan