I’m guessing those political purposes were something like - “we don’t need an international conflict at the same time as trying to contend with this virus”. Or

I’m guessing those political purposes were something like - “we don’t need an international conflict at the same time as trying to contend with this virus”. Or maybe even just a generic desire not to point fingers. I’m not saying this isn’t bad - just that it’s pretty easy to understand why people would downregulate the lab leak hypothesis without anything special going on.