summary - First report of RaTG13, a bat sarbecovirus sampled from a Rhinolophus affinis individual in Yunnan Province, found to be 96.2% identical across the genome to SARS-CoV-2 - at publication, and for the following two years (until Temmam et al. 2022’s BANAL genomes), the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2 anywhere. Also reports the first full-length SARS-CoV-2 genomes from early Wuhan patients and places the virus within the bat sarbecovirus clade. Set the baseline “closest known relative” data essentially every subsequent origins argument, on both sides, builds on or reacts to.
relevance_note - Baseline relatedness dataset cited by both sides; RaTG13 is not itself a plausible direct progenitor (independent molecular-clock estimates put its divergence from SARS-CoV-2 at decades, not years), so both hypotheses have to explain the gap it leaves rather than treating it as a smoking gun either way. This is RaTG13’s own primary sequencing/metadata record - one of two distinct “closest relative” data-bases in this slice (the other being Temmam et al. 2022’s separate BANAL/Laos dataset). Per the recurring-dataset note, keep the two apart rather than merging into one data-basis at step 2.