I seem to recall one of the original arguments for the “artificial origin” hypothesis last year was that the virus was too different from other known viruses and therefore it was implausible that it had developed naturally.
But if we see here an apparently-sudden jump to a significantly different variant, does that make it less surprising that the original strain was novel?
Not "too different". If it were too different it would be very unlikely to have been made by human hands. Different enough, in "suspicious places". For example, one of the major differences came from a spot on the spike protein. We now know that EHA had unsuccessfully applied for grants to study splicing in sequences from other coronaviruses into this spot of SARS (non-COV-2) at the WHI. It's not a stretch to think someone in an adjacent/partner lab was doing the same experiment on the actual COV-2 precursor.
But if we see here an apparently-sudden jump to a significantly different variant, does that make it less surprising that the original strain was novel?