How do you think it would play out if it is found that our government (e.g. NIH/CDC) supplied funding for research that created this virus?
I suspect many countries would take notice.
I suspect many countries would take notice.
The very question demonstrates part of the problem here: there are ways that it could have been 'released' by the lab without being 'created' in the lab (or any lab). It's not clear to me that people are aware of this when the lab origin theory is discussed. Please don't prematurely make an assumption about what was going on in the lab.
It's possible that some researcher went into a cave, took some biological samples from bats back to the lab. Thereafter, lack of proper protocol led to an infection that resulted in the pandemic.
Embarrassing for China? yes, and I'd imagine they'd want to cover it up (although such accidents have happened at other worldwide facilities).
I hate that lab leak is being conflated with engineered.
I also think while we want to believe scientists are all honorable individuals that would always speak the truth there are a lot of incentives to not fess up to this and a lot of incentives of other scientists to downplay this theory.
If anything, the Wuhan lab needed more US funding that was primarily focused on safety.
Edit: If you want to prevent certain types of dangerous research, simply cutting funding is a bad way to do it because it can reduce safety. Instead you need to use other diplomatic or legal tools that won't increase risk.
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin...