[tripletao]

I don't know who you think is asserting that lab origin is "proven"? The claim is that sufficient evidence exists that it should be investigated, not that investigation of all other possibilities should stop.

For a specific example, the WIV had a database of viral genomes, available on the public Internet. There was also a private, password-protected section. That entire database went offline in September 2019, and hasn't come back. The WIV has cited "hacking attempts" as the reason.

Do you find that reason credible? Do you believe that the contents of that database should be obtained and publicly disclosed, for open scientific review? If yes, then you share your desired policy action with the "baseless conspiracy folks". If no, then you share it with the CCP.

And since you say "priors": knowing that a pandemic emerged but nothing else, what's your prior that it emerged due to lab activity? I assume you're aware that the 1977 flu pandemic was probably a lab escape, and depending how you count we've had perhaps a dozen pandemics in the last fifty years; so I don't see how you can claim less than ~5%. That's far from negligible, so what evidence takes you from there to dismissing it as "baseless speculation"? It can't be the novelty of the pathogen, since a distinctive part of the WIV's research was specifically their collection of novel pathogens from nature (about 900 miles away, to be clear; Wuhan wasn't in an expected natural spillover zone).