Well I'm gonna be honest, for me it did sound like an unlikely conspiracy theory, but the more the chinese fight this the more likely it sounds.

True. I think if the info had been made public last year about those three lab workers that came down sick before people at the meat market did, maybe there would have been a more serious investigation earlier.

It still wouldn't have made him give a sh*t about it ravaging the country. Or would it? If it meant sh*tting on China, would more Americans have taken the lockdown and mask wearing more seriously?

I have a feeling this goes deeper than just the media's disdain for Trump, though that probably played a part.

From what I've heard, Fauci was a part of the NIH and was involved in funding the lab and the gain-of-function research happening there. As far as I understand, the Obama administration had some part in greenlighting the operation, including the safety protocols. I don't know if that's true - but if it is, then the US would obviously have a motive in trying to cover up its role in the lab research.

Personally, I think, naive as it might be, that we should not ban this kind of virus research (well....maybe ban the gain-of-function stuff, but I'm not committed to that position), but we should approach it more similarly to nukes. Locations of viral research labs, the projects they're working on, what they've discovered etc. should have a hell of a lot more transparency than it currently does.

You've just missed the point.

The point was not that reporters/researchers ignored the lab theory. The point is that after scientists claimed that zoonotic origin was a more likely scenario a year ago (without concrete evidence), social media and news media took that and ran with it, actively suppressing discussions of the lab leak theory and castigating those that dared to espouse it.

This issue should not even have been political, but it was quickly made political. And then the respective news medias of both sides hastened to assign opinions to their viewers.

You mean headlines aren't evidence?

I know. Surprising, right?

I forget where I read this specific poll result - but the majority of US citizens do believe in zoonotic origin. The fact that there's a viral research lab that was working with Bat coronaviruses a block away from the wet market that COVID-19 purportedly originated from was not enough to raise a majority of eyebrows.

They'll probably censor reports that it was an american bioterrorist attack on china.

Instead of reverting to cynicism and muddying the waters with baseless hypotheticals, care to share your take on its origin?

120% yes.