Somebody needs to say or write it straight out, without hedging, and so far I haven't seen it in print. With not much to lose, I will.
Anthony Fauci and the rest fought hard against the rather obvious notion that the Wuhan lab was the source of the Covid 19 virus, and in favor of the alternative transmission-from-animals story. Perhaps we will never know for sure but it seems to me the reason they did so was to cover their own backsides.
Fauci and colleagues repeatedly funded gain-of-function research in China through a third party cutout. The research, if it proved successful, would result in information they could use to do their jobs. It could also hand a biological weapon to our major geopolitical rival.
I'd guess they feared if the truth were known they'd be blamed for thousands of deaths, tried for treason and murder, sued for untold damages, or worse. As it is, they managed to establish enough doubt to prevent retribution, at least so far.
Doing so, they also managed to seriously degrade the perceived trustworthiness of the federal health care agencies of which they were part. It was a trade-off they seemed only too willing to make, but one we may truly regret when the next pandemic comes along.
