In any case, I can tell you that there was a definite narrative in the media that the lab escape scenario was not only very unlikely, but "xenophobic" and "conspiratorial".
Perhaps the most telling example of all my links below is this one, which is very open to the possibility of a lab escape. The latter half of the article is full of example of the efforts of the media and scientific establishment (for whatever reason, mostly political) to quash the lab escape hypothesis. One key quote:
"Antonio Regalado, biomedicine editor of MIT Technology Review, put it more bluntly. If it turned out COVID-19 came from a lab, he tweeted, 'it would shatter the scientific edifice top to bottom.'"
Article:
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/09/09/alina-chan-br...
And here is a handful of links, of many:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/could-covid-19...
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/health/lab-leak-coronavirus-t...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/politics/coronavirus-intellig...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/17/politics/mike-pompeo-coronavi...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-much-more-lik...