> Their cover-up of the true scale of the problem (lab leak or not) made it hard for politicians in other countries to lock down quickly. It helped it spread intentionally to multiple countries and by then it was too late.

I disagree. The actions from a lot of countries were absolutely lacking, even when they could see how bad it was given both China's data, and Italy, Israel's initial incidents.

China locked down super hard towards late February/mid-March.

During this time there was countless reports about the "ridiculous" and "draconian" lockdowns that occurred in China. The West basically pointed fingers, laughed, and said we'd be fine. And yet they're still not.

> If they were blasting their sirens early in 2021 instead of covering it up we might have had swifter border closures etc.

I agree that even earlier warning would have been good. I just don't see it changing anything. Countries only started to take it seriously when it really started to affect them. They didn't want to risk a political/ financial hit on taking the measures that were needed, and they paid for it.