How is "There's a lab a few blocks from the virus epicenter which does GoF research on coronaviruses and there's only a small handful of such labs in the whole world. This probably isn't a coincidence." different from "a theory based on data".
So I would say, yes, you are looking at this wrong. Saying, "Well you were right but you couldn't possibly have known because you had insufficient information" is tantamount to believing "no one could possibly draw correct conclusions from less data than I could". Hopefully it's clear why that is wrong.
I'm not a big fan of lesswrong, but here's a pretty influential essay on the extreme version of the phenomenon of drawing conclusions from apparently insufficient data, and how it isn't just coincidence: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MwQRucYo6BZZwjKE7/einstein-s....
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that everyone who believed this theory is more intelligent. That would be the most absurd thing of all! What I am saying however is that you can't distinguish between the people who believed it because they performed a (very!) minor Einsteinian feat and those who believe it just because they were told and like the theory. But you're better off not going around and calling them all racist or saying they all just guessed, because at least in some cases that isn't true, and would be anti-intellectual.
Most relevant paragraph from link:
"Of course, Einstein did turn out to be right. I try to avoid criticizing people when they are right. If they genuinely deserve criticism, I will not need to wait long for an occasion where they are wrong."