origins of this virus? well, the most likely is that it's a zoonotic origin, most likely bats and i think we may need to think about an intermediary animal to explain how it actually got into people. and what evidence are you basing that on? first of all, the genetic evidence. there's one very close relative of it. ratg-13 ratg—13 was found in bats in china in 2013 after six miners got sick. three of them died. researchers from wuhan that studied and officially identified the virus. it's a 96.2% match with sars—cov—2 and closer relatives have been found in bat caves in neighbouring laos in the past few weeks. this is significant because both are the closest known relatives of sars—cov—2 and either, or both, could have changed enough over