And let's not even begin to think what will happen if there were to be evidence that this was an intentional release.
But don't you think it's important to know this?
One of the things Wade demonstrates is that China was most likely doing research on CoV viruses in ordinary labs with nothing more than gloves and a white lab coat. The standard photo of Dr Shi is of her in a pressurised bubble suit but that's bsl4 and virologists don't like working in those conditions because it slows them down. So the research grants say the work will be done at much lower safety levels.
I guess at some point you enter a gray area where gross negligence and intentionality blur together. But the bioweapon idea shouldn't take hold because it's obviously wrong on its face: the virus has no characteristics that would make for a good weapon of any kind. For it to be intentional would require some kind of theory involving vaccinations but Europe's irrational shutdowns of their own vaccine programmes throws a wrench in the typical vaccine related conspiracy theories.
> the virus has no characteristics that would make for a good weapon of any kind.
Quite the contrary. The virus clearly favors authoritarian societies whose citizens will let their government weld them into their apartments. Just look at the death rate in China compared to the US and Europe. The only free societies that have come out unscathed are isolated islands (NZ, Taiwan).
That said, there is zero chance that the CPC had foreknowledge of this. They got very, very lucky.
Eastern European countries are topping the death-per-capita charts (and the ones that don't are still topping excess-death charts).
African countries are doing "okay" because their ratio of people above age 65 is 2-3% rather than the 20% in Europe, and case numbers are low because they don't have the money to mass test.