Sure. But play the ball - not the man
Have a look at this
WHO SITREP giving official Chinese timeline. China fessed up that it was a coronavirus on 7 January.
https://www.who.int/docs/default-sou...rsn=20a99c10_4
Except this
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0...251-8/fulltext
Look at table of results
So China obtained CV from a patient at least as early as 26 December. Now even if the PCR was negative as new virus (plausible), I’ll bet both nuts they would have looked at those samples under an electron microscope. They would have seen CV (which were named for their distinct appearance under EM). So they knew they had a CV problem around December 26.