> I've got a busy day so don't want to get into it again -- but I cannot express how incapable the average (even educated!) person is to "do their own research" on something as complex and nuanced as molecular engineering and the probabilities of covid genetic engineering.

I don't think you can claim to have consensus on this matter since Dr. Li-Meng Yan who worked at the lab and got the CCP scrub when she went public had been speaking out about this since 2020 after having been in hiding and then fleeing China for her claims. Moreover she detailed how people who worked at the lab in Wuhan have been in retrospect beholden to the CCP for not discussing the poor safety record of the lab.

And your position about how it's not worthy of discussion makes it very clear you speak with a sense of bias because ultimately a conclusive epidemiological study will prove impossible since the floods in Wuhan in 2020 took place that coincided with the CCP's abject refusal to have outside investigators come in and search for the possible origin of the COVID, and even accused the US of creating the virus and spreading it--much how Russia has made to justify it's illegal invasion into Ukraine to de-nazify it and now de-satanize it after claims of US COVID biolabs in Ukraine.

For what's it worth, I have a BSc in cellular and molecular biology, and I was also involved in the plight of the HK people since the Umbrella Revolution, and had people been actually abreast of that situation they would have known that something was going incredibly wrong by November 2019: the CCP/Lam regime forced the protests for the extradition bill (and possibly declare independence the way things were going since the Summer) in HK to be quelled altogether for a fear of contagion of what had been going around in order to prevent the calamity of the Avaian Bird flu that is still in recent memory for many in HK--which was much worse on the mainland than it was in HK because of the abysmal health and safety practices by the CCP.

And had people paid attention, the CCP not only arrested many dissenters and created a massive diaspora in one of the most affluent and well educated countries in Asia that served as an economic hub to the West it got the NSL to pass during this time, it also continued to arrest and intimidate Hong Kong into abject repression all under the pretense of COVID. when they themselves, via the Lam regime, kept the borders open and allowed mainland Chinese to enter HK and their were plenty of recorded footage of them violating covid practices (quarantine) and actively going into public areas and act as vectors (coughing and spitting on elevators), going into restaurants despite quarantine practices etc...

Lastly, Propublica released an investigative piece last month about the lab leak theory [0] under the auspicious of the US senate, which I'm not denying has glaring geo-political overtones; especially given the CCP's saber-rattling towards Taiwan and well documented tyrannical behaviour in Xinjiang and Hong Kong; the latter violated the Sino-British treaty and dismissed international Law which effectively mean it illegally annexed a territory imposed a repressive law (NSL) to suppress any dissent which was to operate autonomously until 2037--which can be seen as hostile as Russia violating both the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk agreements when it invaded Ukraine in 2014 and illegally annexed and occupied Crimea/Lugansk/Donetsk and has led to full invasion and crimes against Humanity ever since with indiscriminate shelling on civilian areas under the aforementioned pretenses.

I'll leave it here because quite honestly I can't fathom anyone to be so brazenly reductionist in their thinking and claim to have the 'upper hand' when their is clear violations all the way which implicate not just the CCP but the US (via NIH funding) as well for funding the GoF research in Wuhan [1] despite repeated safety record violations.

And on a personal note: it's because the health sciences is filled with people like you that I had to turn to tech in the end. I was sent into such a forlorn depression after a short career in it when I found the Industry is was mainly filled with people who will cling on to any party-line in order to continue their work and research. In retrospect I wish I had chosen something else to give so much of my time, effort and passion had I known how quickly it becomes a way to legitimize the commonly held narratives of the State or a Corporation, and how quickly it willing compromise itself for such short-sighted goals in the process.

0: https://www.propublica.org/article/senate-report-covid-19-or...

1: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statem...