> To me what gives me credence to the "lab leak theory" more than anything, was China's behavior during and initially after the outbreak [...]
That all sounds to me just like a massive authoritarian government bureaucracy dealing with a quick moving disaster on their soil where the beaurocrats didn't know what was happening, because the scientists couldn't tell them, so they leaned in on trying to control everyone.
The argument rephrased reads to me like "The reason why I believe in the lab leak theory is that an authoritarian country behaved like an authoritarian country, when I would have expected them to behave like my western democracy".
That all sounds to me just like a massive authoritarian government bureaucracy dealing with a quick moving disaster on their soil where the beaurocrats didn't know what was happening, because the scientists couldn't tell them, so they leaned in on trying to control everyone.
The argument rephrased reads to me like "The reason why I believe in the lab leak theory is that an authoritarian country behaved like an authoritarian country, when I would have expected them to behave like my western democracy".