1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"
2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab
3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1]
[1]https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly...
There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of "we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus," but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research.
My personal feeling is that these statements are true:
* The virus is unlikely to have been engineered (in the way I described above) and leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was the result of gain of function research and it leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was a natural research sample and it leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was introduced by an animal/person who traveled to the wet market.
Some of these are more likely than others, and an individual's own calibration for what is likely or unlikely will probably come into play more than evidence in the short term and possibly long term as well. I can say the vast majority of us are not qualified to answer the question either way though.
All seem plausible because...
1) gain of function research is super risky and there have been lab escapes before. We need to do MUCH better about lab leaks. We should spend more on security and have greater transparency. We should also question whether it even makes sense to do that kind of research.
2) Same thing for natural research sample being leaked...
3) wet markets are probably a really bad idea. And we should probably keep a better eye on natural virus variants, HOWEVER... that's somewhat in conflict with the "maybe this research isn't worth it" line of thinking.
So we have some somewhat hard trade-offs, here, but there are aspects where we can just do better. Like, whenever we do do research on viruses, we should probably be a LOT more careful about how and when we do it.
And although it's very unlikely the virus was engineered, we should probably be careful with the technology that would let it be engineered. The technology that makes sequencing novel virus strains and developing novel vaccines using mRNA also makes it easier to engineer a virus. This is a tough one because if we had clamped down super hard on mRNA tech too early, we would've been perhaps unprepared to make a vaccine...