I have some opinion on this: despite whatever was the source, the reaction that was made by countries (i.e. complete global lockdown of population) means that they were scared as hell. And I haven't seen any govt scared so much on any flu that came out in my life, however some of them were baddest in my life (not mathematically speaking, I know that every set has a supreme element, what I mean that flu can be dangerous to people incl me, with asthma)

Based on their reaction we may know that they either knew something very bad (i.e. failed experiment) or were suspecting something so bad that could, at least in their theory, kill the population or massively decrease it.

In other words something was fishy and they overreacted.