Actually it is the other way around. It is irresponsible to exaggerate the mere “possibility” the virus came from a lab when such an origin has not been conclusively demonstrated. But yours is the better story, and in times like this people do crave a good story.
Nothing has been conclusively demonstrated. That’s the point. Nothing is a story, it’s science not “exaggeration” that some are trying to discuss here and which evidentially some prefer not to do but to marginalize instead. Unfortunate.
Of course there will be branding by some on anyone who suggests the possibility the coronavirus might have originated as a bioweapon developed in a secretive Wuhan lab or an accidnetial leak from a lab as deranged conspiracy theorist (a propaganda approach first popularized in the 1960s by the CIA to discredit controversial views). People are of course entitled to their opinions, but this isn’t a story, which is only reinforced by dissenting views from the scientific community, including those in “ground zero”, China and from prestigious research institutes. As people die around the world, the nations will look to the CCP and ask what happened, as the WH itself have ask scientists to probe the origin of the disease.
The White House asked scientists and medical experts to research the origins of the novel coronavirus, in part to counter misinformation about the outbreak.
abcnews.go.com
Perhaps of relevance for evaluating the plausibility of the zoonotic transfer hypothesis is the (reported) initial reaction from Shi Zhengli.
“Shi—a virologist who is often called China’s ‘bat woman’ by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 years—walked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan. ‘I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong,’ she says. ‘I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.’ Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical areas of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animals—particularly bats, a known reservoir for many viruses. If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, ‘
could they have come from our lab?’