I’m not saying it is impossible, I’m saying it is not likely.
I think it is great for people to research the origins and dig into all the details and try to find the truth. But if the virus were of natural origin, which to me is the most likely truth, then all of this talk and speculation are just maligning completely innocent people. And many of the comments here are maligning left and right.
The tone of many comments is certainly unfortunate, and we certainly shouldn't go from unjustified confidence in natural origin to unjustified confidence in lab origin; I'd put the odds near a coin flip myself. That's perhaps a backlash to the last year, though, during which anyone pushing for investigation of this reasonable hypothesis was maligned as a conspiracy theorist or worse.
For example, here's a message from an academic virologist quoted frequently in the mainstream media with a wide Twitter following, who calls Yuri Deigin's summary of the evidence for lab origin a "Turner Diary-esque manifesto". (The Turner Diaries is a novel about a race war, popular among violent white supremacists including Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.)
That kind of rhetoric is nothing unusual from anonymous Internet trolls, or even from politicians. It was strange to see from scientists, though. I don't think the backlash is good, but it's not surprising.
Finally, if the CCP wanted to stop this speculation, then they could allow an open investigation, giving international scientists full access to the WIV's documents and samples. Perhaps the reason that the CCP hasn't is just an authoritarian state's reflexive secrecy, and there's nothing to actually cover up; but if that's the case, then they have only themselves to blame for the suspicion.
There was an investigation! International teams went over data and samples! Researchers were questioned! All of this is public and in reports. The problem with saying it is a cover up is that no matter what is provided you can just say nothing is enough.
Can we get more details about how we know for sure that 2-3 researchers were actually hospitalized? Oh, it’s classified, eh? Well I can’t imagine the US ever falsifying intelligence.
I’m not suggesting that the US is lying and CCP isn’t. But I think if you rationally look at the data and the reports and listen to the people that did the investigation they do not believe in the conspiracy. And yes, they are biased, but at least they have arguments and actual data to defend their position.
Are you referring to the team led by the WHO's Peter Ben Embarek? If yes, please note that he said explicitly that it wasn't an "investigation", despite the media widely using that word:
They reviewed summaries of data provided by Chinese scientists. They generally did not review raw data themselves, let alone physical samples, and took no steps (analogous e.g. to a financial audit) designed to uncover deliberate attempts to mislead.
For a specific example, what is your opinion of the WIV's virus database? This is a database-backed website that went offline in September 2019. The WIV has cited "hacking attempts" as the reason for this. Do you believe their explanation? If so, why are they still refusing to provide it in a different format (e.g., a dump on a flash drive) that would obviously present no computer security risk?
I think it is great for people to research the origins and dig into all the details and try to find the truth. But if the virus were of natural origin, which to me is the most likely truth, then all of this talk and speculation are just maligning completely innocent people. And many of the comments here are maligning left and right.