And maybe if it was a leak and the world had been warned of the dangers then they would have locked down movement to and from the origin before it began to spread internationally.
The fact is that even ignoring government response, all of our medical institutions seemed to presume that this was yet another [avian, swine, bird, ...] flu outbreak and it would be about as minimally impactful for the west as the rest have been. Which indicates that doctors and hospital administration were either not reading the literature coming out of China as early as last january 2020, or they simply disregarded it as sensationalist and/or sloppy. And, to be fair, given the state of crisis that our research institutions are in globally, I can't entirely blame them, though I still think it was irresponsible that no one seemed to make any preparations for months after the outbreak was apparent. It's as if everyone sat on their hands waiting for the government to tell them it was serious.
No! We should worry about the cause and also concern ourselves with managing the effect.
If we can prevent this, we should try. And, if our (American) politicians can be held to account for mishandling the situation, the WHO and China should be scrutinized on the international stage.