Yes, been seeing these predictions for a long time.
>It is at the same time perfectly possible it was engineered.
Occams razor clearly indicates it was engineered at this point. We have had years to prove it was zoonotic, it's not.
>It is a plain stupid move, politically, to outwardly entertain the idea that COVID was engineered - unless you've got proof so damning not even China could ignore it. Unlikely to exist. And even then it is only going to score you a few feel-good points with the plebeians at home.
Not sure I agree with this point. There's a wide gap at this point between 'engineered to release and attack the world' and 'lab leak because they were incompetent.' Which is exactly what was already established. Many sources clearly indicated they werent following basic safety procedures at that lab.
>Either possibility has no impact at all on shorter term decision making. It is stupid to burden people whose immediate goal it is to save lives with even more political minefields they have to navigate.
On the contrary. They cannot do their job effectively without doing exactly this. If we ignored reality like we did, they now will react inappropriately. Which is what happened.