When the wuhan Lab leak happened in 2019 most of my direct and indirect mainland china contacts were more or less 100% sure that this was intentionally leaked by the regime, and even if it wasn’t, that the regime is going to milk it internally (vs dissent) and externally (vs the west). Especially given that this happened just a few months after the Hong Kong protest crackdowns.
The western center-left didn’t want to acknowledge any of this until it became politically feasible for their own gain and this alone cost us roughly the first three months of properly responding.
Let’s see if and how they’ll going to put their political shenanigans before their countrymen this time. I fear, with all the division they sewed it is almost certainly going lure them to double down on “Covidiots”.