[matwood]

How the lab leak theory was handled by the media was definitely botched, but at the time the full theory that I saw thrown around was more than an accidental leak. It also included items like purposely engineered to attack the west, and even included purposely releasing in order to attack Trump which afaik there has been zero evidence.

[crocodiletears]

There were multiple theories of various levels of conspiracy thinking.

The 'deliberately released bioweapon' stance was niche by niche standards. It had a vocal base, and some initial inertia in January due to the HK protests. But the 'accidental lab leak' hypothesis always made more sense.

It was the weakest version of the argument, and the existence of that bathwater in need of being tossed hardly necessitated defenestrating the clean baby lying next to the tub.

[jimmydorry]

You shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water though. The existence of outlandish claims should not render all unsupported claims invalid. Even if those outlandish claims manage to garner the support of the masses.

[matwood]

I agree, which is why I said the coverage was botched. But even the person I originally responded to said the 'Wuhan lab hypothesis'. Which hypothesis? I thought an accidental lab leak always seemed like valid avenue to explore (my version of the hypothesis), but depending on who you say hypothesis to it means different things.

I think the whole situation highlights the challenges with communication in such a hyper us/them environment with the memeification of out of context quotes. The later is also commonly seen with experts who say something like "you don't need to do X, unless A, B, C occurs." The only thing shown to the masses is "You don't need to do X".

[dqv]

It seems like that association was engineered. The question went something like "did the virus leak from the WIV?" to which the mass media responded "no, the virus was not man-made!"