Epidemiologists have warned about the possibility of a pandemic for years. They've even been pretty clear about factors that manifested in SARS-CoV-2, like it having flu-like symptoms and originating in China.
Whether the virus leaked from a lab, from a chicken or from some guy eating a bat, doesn't matter. This was going to happen one way or another and many countries, especially in the West, were incredibly arrogant thinking it wouldn't be a problem for them.
Consider Vietnam: they followed the news very closely early on and already had procedures in place that would reduce the likelihood of transmission. While Europeans and Americans were only talking about some new disease in China, they started wearing masks and tracing contacts. When we only just started recommending people make masks at home, they already had the situation under control and were providing free meals to quarantined foreigners.
We didn't take SARS-CoV-2 serious because we expected our "superior" hygiene, technology and healthcare systems to protect us even if authoritarian China had to "wall people in" to contain the spread. Surely we wouldn't need draconian uncivilized measures like lockdowns. In Germany we even maintained this arrogance when Italy had to send in military convoys to get rid of the bodybags -- of course they wouldn't be able to contain this, because everybody knows they're careless and flamboyant and disorganized.
At several points, the US lost as many people to COVID per day as it lost to 9/11. Germany is already riding the third wave with no real plans in sight and a dysfunctional vaccine rollout. New mutations are arising and taking their toll in Western countries. This isn't on China, this is on us.
So if you follow these stories out of pure curiosity, good on you. If you follow them because you desperately want someone to blame: stop. Blame your own country's government. This is on them. All they needed to do was take the experts seriously and not listen to industry lobby groups instead. Countries like Australia have understood this. Countries like Germany are too busy cutting backroom deals and playing party politics instead.