I doubt it, it's so virulent that if it was present in a small number of people it would have kicked off mass spread. IMO the most likely thing is that since coronaviruses recombine very often compared to other virus families, that the tests for covid 19 are picking up other coronaviruses. Plus the genetically most similar viruses have been found to be bat viruses in nearby provinces to Wuhan. It also spread from a bat to pangolin then back to bats to humans very very recently, so it had to be somewhere with a pangolin population.
I doubt it, it's so virulent that if it was present in a small number of people it would have kicked off mass spread. IMO the most likely thing is that since coronaviruses recombine very often compared to other virus families, that the tests for covid 19 are picking up other coronaviruses. Plus the genetically most similar viruses have been found to be bat viruses in nearby provinces to Wuhan. It also spread from a bat to pangolin then back to bats to humans very very recently, so it had to be somewhere with a pangolin population.