Exactly. Frankly, I'm tired of this tip-toed attitude - there hasn't been any sort of consequences suffered or imposed on the Chinese government for how they surreptitiously dealt with the virus, initially.
I'm not condoning or advocating conspiracy theories, but where they are wrong, they should be penalised.
The Chinese government also started limiting domestic flights in January 2020 but allowed foreign flights out until late March 2020 (https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2020/04/09/Coronaviru...). That seems like they were containing damage that affected them but were happy to risk the rest of the world. I’m not sure if this was an economic decision or something more malicious but it doesn’t matter - how are they not held accountable for this obvious export of the virus?
Meanwhile in the US, hysterical partisans attacked Trump for correctly naming the virus along with its origin. This resulted in a societal unwillingness to direct blame at the Chinese government for all their numerous missteps, starting with suppression of early reports of a new pneumonia like illness in late 2019. How many deaths could have been avoided with just the most basic level of transparency and responsibility?
> Meanwhile in the US, hysterical partisans attacked Trump for correctly naming the virus along with its origin
He spent months doing nothing in preparation, and denying there was an issue then when it turned out there was an actual problem decided it was all China's fault ... even though they had it largely under control by that point. That's why people were "hysterical" - he saw it coming, did nothing and refused to take any responsibility, but blamed someone else. He wasn't trying to accurately identify the source of the virus, he was trying to save his own skin.
Sure it's frustrating that we only found out in (I think) December that it was spreading human-to-human, and it'd be good to see some actual investigation from China. But Trump's finger-pointing was all just desperate attempt to save face and deflect from his own poor management and nothing more. Your question should be rephrased "How many deaths could have been avoided with just the most basic level of competency?" and directed at Donald Trump and his administration.
> But China knew about the virus in 2019 and kept it quiet.
I don't think it would have mattered. We had documentaries such as The Lockdown [1] in the end of February 2020, yet still most Western countries spent much of March 2020 still debating whether they should react somehow or not.
This is the truth. We don't have evidence that the virus came from a lab (how could we when China refused investigation?), but we have evidence that the whistleblowers were arrested. Some are dead and some aren't seen again. Are we not supposed to blame this regime?
I feel like only one thing matters. If regular people find out that gain of function research (or something similar) resulted in a lab leak that killed millions of people, then regular people will demand this kind of research stop.
None of the people most qualified to speak on this issue want their funding cut or the research to stop.
But China knew about the virus in 2019 and kept it quiet. They silenced scientists. China is complicit in this pandemic and should pay reparations.