We need to be figuring out how to deal with that. Wondering where it came from is mostly neither here nor there.
We aren't going to magically stop doing lab experiments if we can know for certain that it started in a lab. If we can determine for certain that this jumped species, welp, it isn't the first time and it won't be the last.
It seems intuitive that knowing the origin of the virus (sample escaping a lab or pure nature) could help prevent similar cases in the future or deal with them more efficiently. Is my intuition wrong here?
It would mean countries that have labs would either be forced to allow constant audits and reasonable regulations (such as don't have labs in cities) or face isolation.
It would also mean quite a heavy political response towards china if it indeed escaped a lab (which is why they're sabotaging everything even if it didn't...)
The threat of such a response to me is part of the problem. This incentivises an insecure player to act counter to the common goal by concealing the facts in order to avoid a scenario of being attacked by other players.
In the end we’re all human and mistakes happen. Regulations, audits, this can be implemented transparently for everyone; if that was the end of it and there was no perceived potential of repercussions, perhaps we wouldn’t have this problem.
(Not to say this somehow justifies the obstruction of the investigation, but IMO it’s something to keep in mind.)
Communist party rule will be in big danger if chinese people start blaming it for this clusterfuck.
Externally, its not controllable, US invaded 2 countries after 9/11, it would be easy to think that politicians will do something or someone more radical will get elected.