HIV is believed to have first infected humans in the 1920s where it traveled up the Congo before arriving in Kinshasa. From there it radiated across Africa carried by truckers. Like you say, I haven't seen evidence to rule out rural circulation before arriving in Wuhan. Granted, I don't think this is the most likely series of events, but the GoF lab leak hypothesis is lacking support.
The documents that the article is based on demonstrate the lab was doing GoF experiments to infect humanized mice with chimeras based on bat coronaviruses and got a grant to do further such research starting in 2019. And lo - we get a break out of something looking like a bat based chimera that infects human cells in 2019. Bit of a coincidence there.
