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...
And in there, I describe exactly how wrong your point 1 is. And how misguided your point 3 is.
The post also won a "best of r/science 2020" award!
You can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...
1.1 Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature
1.2 and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature.
1.3 If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"
You can't do it in the time we've been able to handle viruses like this or modify them in the ways we can. You'd have needed to start a few decades ago, have tools that we've only just invented, and a huge number of willing test subjects.
I cover this in extreme detail in the post I linked under Q2 and Q3.
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpbt6o
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpc7c8
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence is the synonymous/nonsynonomous ratio of the genome and it's mosaic mutations.
That's not something you can just cook up over night, it takes many millions of viral generations which require A) diverse hosts (like you find in a natural ecosystem), B) many millions of hosts, like you find in nature, and C) decades of time.
The chinese virology labs don't have the resources, time, or space to do something like that. And maybe it would be kind of possible today with CRISPR and many thousands of oligonucleotides printed off of a desktop printer, but that technology hasn't existed for more than a few years. The timelines just don't add up.
Who said the test subjects have to be willing? That's never stopped our government before.
The conspiracy becomes so immense it's absurd the many thousands of people who would have to keep quiet.
This really indicates you have idea about China. The CCP can easily make millions and tens of millions not only quiet, but enthusiastically deny what happened to them.
China's low death count is exactly what you'd expect for a country that had a severe lockdown early on, and which has not had significant community transmission since.
Beginning in late January 2020, there was a strict lockdown throughout China. In Hubei, people were essentially told not to leave their homes, food was delivered door-to-door, local volunteers went around checking people's temperatures at home and sending sick people to hospital or quarantine, in order to prevent even family members from infecting one another. The virus was starved of hosts and driven to near extinction in the country.
When China opened up again, there were sporadic cases in some cities, which were finally dealt with through mass testing campaigns. In Wuhan, for example, the government tested nearly all residents (about 10 million people) over the course of a few days in June 2020.
There have been a few outbreaks since. China has very strict quarantine rules, but the virus somehow finds a way in every few months. Most recently, someone who was infected walked over the border from Myanmar, without being tested or sent into quarantine. When these outbreaks occur, the government tests nearly every person in the affected region (the newest twist is now that there are vaccines, the government is vaccinating every person in the affected border town - in previous outbreaks, they would have just done PCR tests on everyone). When you have the resources of a massive country to throw at a small, localized outbreak, you can actually contain it.
So the basic situation is that China had one major outbreak in Hubei province early on, but that the virus has been nearly completely absent from the country for more than a year now. China's death toll is exactly what you'd expect for an outbreak in one province that infected <5% of the population of that province before it was stamped out.