Define "fault". Define "conclusive". In general, perhaps, however that's kind of too broad. For example, I haven't read a report yet that doesn't say the origin of this pandemic was China. Of course that doesn't mean it wasn't "natural" or was on purpose/nefarious so that definition of "fault" matters. If you are referring to jumping on TV and saying it was/wasn't a "lab leak", then that doesn't necessarily imply a bad "fault" either. That said, there are some that see it as meaning "on purpose" and not an accident. So in my opinion, putting the origin on the lab is accurate, the more difficult question that should be answered is "how" (or why) did it happen and what are they doing to stop it from happening again. (pretty sure they already know the answer but aren't sharing).
I do apologize, my intent didn’t make it to my fingers. I probably was considering too many revisions at the same time, please allow me to backpedal and rephrase a bit.
Jumping on cable TV and endorsing any particular theory beyond what the evidence merits is not research. So much research remains to be done and yes, China’s lack of transparency in the matter doesn’t help things. That’s frustrating but it does not necessarily indicate whether the virus was naturally-occurring or manmade.
Remember, China is not a monolith. The government was looking for heads to roll, and many people had reason to cover up their own containment blunders, even without a laboratory origin.
If by “Switzerland” you mean that the evidence does not support any specific conclusion, I’d say that that’s valid.
That is not to say that the two camps are equivalent though. It is obvious that the virus’s origin in China has led to spikes in anti-Chinese sentiment and violence globally. While this sort of thing will be impossible to avoid altogether since the virus actually did originate there, inflating the conclusiveness of lab leak/bioweapon theories beyond what the evidence merits will inevitably prolong this problem and make it worse.
Aggressively pushing a theory for natural origin is no less fallacious, but it does pose less of this kind of threat and is therefore less irresponsible.
This is why the media has an ethical duty to report the virus’s origins as accurately as possible given the available evidence and show people the door for jumping the gun on confidently declaring a manmade origin prematurely. It’s both unfounded and harmful.
For some reason I got carried away with the quotation marks in this post...maybe everyone will just visualize them as "finger quotes".
I think I get it.
