[suzumer]

Saying COVID-19 leaked from a lab with zero evidence is different than waiting for evidence and then saying it leaked from a lab.

[themgt]

There were very good arguments that Covid (probably) leaked from a lab as early as April 2020 at the latest (and in January if you were a virologist included in top-level NIAID emails). HN largely went along with the shunning of debate, which helped give everyone the impression there was "zero evidence" of a lab leak compared to solid evidence of zoonotic origin, which was simply never true.

https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...

[cm2187]

Censoring views that it came from a lab leak with zero evidence isn't any better. In fact I remember being lied to by major news outlets at the time saying that the evidence points to a non lab origin.

[asmor]

It did though. Animal origin only stopped being the most favored explanation because we haven't found the link in 5 years.

[lr4444lr]

Yes, but the rush to the wet market theory was no better.

[Aloisius]

Wasn't it? Most of the earliest cases had a link to the market, many of whom were vendors including the very first known case. The early cases which had no known link lived/stayed clustered around the market. The market sold live wild animals which were known reservoirs for the previous coronavirus break (SARS).

How can following a trail possibly be no better?

[wongarsu]

There was also no evidence against it. If there is neither solid evidence for nor against something I find it perfectly reasonable to apply the balance of probabilities. At least as long as you qualify your statement with a "probably".

And with the main competing theory (covid spreading from a wet market in a city that contains a biolab) also being consistent with the hypothesis that it was an accidental lab leak, to me the balance of probabilities always seemed to favor the lab leak hypothesis.

Yet saying that Covid probably originated from a lab leak was once branded as dangerous misinformation, with seemingly no evidence to support that claim

[suzumer]

At the time, there was essentially a 50/50 chance it was a lab leak or from a wet market. The issue with saying it was a lab leak at that time is that you are essentially gambling the US's relationship with China should it come out that it was a from a wet market. Also, a lot of the discussion regarding the lab leak theory early on seemed to me like it wouldn't be sated even if the US presented sufficient evidence that it was from a wet market.

[Throw84949595]

But we can say it leaked from wet market without evidence!

[wordofx]

The lab leak theory was started by Chinese netizens. It was mentioned on Chinese media. Hell the name Wu Flu came from Chinese media.