I am not a medical professional. I also do not have enough knowledge on medicine or biology. But I have been wondering a lot about one question in particular for some time: How did COVID-19 jump the species barrier?
I searched for the topic online and came across this report from WHO published in February 2020. It states in the beginning:
The new COVID-19 is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. The most likely ecological reservoirs for SARS-CoV-2 are bats, but it is believed that the virus jumped the species barrier to humans from another intermediate animal host. This intermediate animal host could be a domestic food animal, a wild animal, or a domesticated wild animal which has not yet been identified.
This seems to indicate that the virus first jumped to an intermediate specifies, most likely to a domesticated species before it started affecting humans. What I am really interested in knowing is does this jump happen naturally and we are just unfortunate that it jumped at this specific time in history or, are there indications that this jump was accompanied by artificial means (i.e., through some artificial means of replicating an animal virus and designing it to be harmful for humans)?
I am only curious about this and just wanted some professional opinion. This question is only for purposes of a healthy and educative discussion and is by no means an attempt to create panic or spread false information and conspiracies. Thank you.