Lab leak theory has holes.

Non-scientists who push the lab theory are fond of saying that it was "gain of function" experiments at Wuhan Virology that produced the virus. This is borderline woo. Gain of function sounds menacing but it is a basic experimental tool. The question is gain of WHAT function? (Gain of function is basically just using natural selection in the lab to change the expression of some gene or set of genes under investigation.)

What I am trying to get at is that SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is a weird virus by any standard. The protein spike it uses to latch onto ACE2 (this is how it infects cells) is just WEIRD, according to the virologists I have read. It doesn't work all that well with human ACE2, but its protein spike is versatile, able to work cross-species. This is why the virus is unusual in easily spreading from humans to animals--minks, tigers, dogs, you name it. It is promiscuous in terms of host. That also probably contributes to how diverse human reactions are to it too. And that diversity of reactions--the fact that it actually does NOT act the way a weapon would--is what has made it much more difficult to contain than SARS was, for example. This virus does not act like a weapon anyone would design--it is not AT ALL like other known bioweapons.

The virus itself does not support any claim that it was deliberately weaponized. It does not remotely follow the known principles of bioweapon design. It does not use any of the known "backbones" of synthetic virus design. This leaves the possibility of accidental release.

Even if Wuhan Virology was doing potentially unsafe "gain of function" research with coronaviruses, what were they trying to test in making this virus? The furin cleavage, the furin cleavage, skeptics cry! Meh. Just because there is no explanation YET for a feature is not evidence that the feature is artificial--down that road intelligent design awaits, y'all.

We KNOW that SARS-CoV-2 readily recombines with other strains in hosts. Genetic analysis shows that it is the product of recombination, which is why they thought pangolins may have been an intermediary at first--the virus has pangolin coronavirus genes. But cladistics suggests it went from pangolins BACK into bats. That analysis is based on genetic sampling of different coronavirus strains.

I think this is why most scientists remain skeptical. It is certainly possible the virus was made in a lab (through recombination) and accidentally released. But there is absolutely no need for any lab to have played a role. Unless real evidence emerges that the virus came from a lab, we should regard a lab release as nothing but a nebulous possibility. The fact that China has been dishonest is not evidence that the virus came from its labs--China has MANY reasons to cover up how badly it botched its response.