The way I remember it was that people conflated the lab leak theory with it being engineered in a lab. Those are very different things but easy to mix up in a headline.
It being engineered as a bioweapon is in the realm of a crackpot theory, but it being just a poorly contained natural research project was fairly reasonable. Some prominent people mixed the two up on purpose and eventually the whole thing - both ideas - got labeled a crackpot theory by people who just saw some headlines.
> The way I remember it was that people conflated the lab leak theory with it being engineered in a lab. Those are very different things but easy to mix up in a headline.
This is kind of how I remember things too I think, I feel like I'm being gaslit by the internet lately reading how certain some people are.
I've seen this so many times, yet 9 times out of ten, even in this thread, when people are claiming it originated in a lab, they also include claims that it was created in a lab.
To be fair it does not sound like many people doubt that they were conducting gain of function experiments at the Wuhan lab, which makes it not unlikely that a lab leak as successful as covid was one of those engineered strains. If it was a lab leak at all.
Certain right wing China hawks were pushing the bioweapon theory to stoke fears, and since the loudest and most outrageous talking points are what spreads on the internet, that became the default idea for a lot of people when they heard "lab origins".
It being engineered as a bioweapon is in the realm of a crackpot theory, but it being just a poorly contained natural research project was fairly reasonable. Some prominent people mixed the two up on purpose and eventually the whole thing - both ideas - got labeled a crackpot theory by people who just saw some headlines.