Coronavirus: Lab Leak?

So yeah, how COVID-19 started spreading in this world is not something I am qualified to discuss: naturally or lab leak. I do know that the Wuhan lab leak theory was largely considered a fringe / conspiracy idea. But now the New Yorker (Jan 4) has a rather long write-up about the topic. 

Did China censor their own scientists?

Two laboratories, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC) and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, were not far from the seafood market, which was where the disease was said to have originated, [Botao Xiao, a professor at the South China University of Technology] wrote — in fact, the WHCDC was only a few hundred yards away from the market — whereas the horseshoe bats that hosted the disease were hundreds of miles to the south . . . His article disappeared from the server. 

There was concern shown at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

[Shi Zhengli a scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology] was surprised that the outbreak was local, she said: “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” The bat hiding places that she’d been visiting were, after all, as far away as Orlando, Florida, is from New York City. Could this new virus, she wondered, have come from her own laboratory? She checked her records and found no exact matches. “That really took a load off my mind,” she said. “I had not slept a wink for days.”

The write-up is extensive and an interesting read.

Many scientists in America seem to be against the idea that the virus resulted from a lab leak. My opinion is that they are either telling the honest truth, are just wrong  or that they're hiding something. If they're hiding something, I would bet that they or their employers are either working closely with Chinese counterparts or are being funded by China money and so they have a conflict of interest forcing them to avoid exploring the possibility of a lab leak. History may or may not give us the answer.