trust the scientists I mean politicians I mean scientists!
There needs to be a public response by scientists decrying the bad behavior here. It's the least we can do to try to slow the general public's loss of faith in experts.
Scientific outcry won't change that fact that this will be cited, forever, to undermine anything said by any scientist about COVID. Spreaders of misinformation don't care about overall scientific opinion. These scientists are called on to repent when they make a mistake, but the lairs aren't. They just move on to their next lie, with no repercussions.
Public health experts are required to manage people's perceptions, and their actions. If people were capable of evaluating and acting on scientific evidence themselves, we wouldn't need them. They're in an impossible position, and you'll get their mea culpas if you want them... but it won't fix anything.
Note that no new evidence is presented here, only that some scientists thought it might have leaked from the Wuhan lab. Some other scientists then suggested it would be unhelpful to debate that conjecture.
As it was, the Wuhan lab possibility was aired at length in the media, and many experts concluded that the origin was almost surely completely natural (in the sense of not from a lab).
