As an American progressive, here's how I feel about it. I have no doubt that others will have a different take. I don't think it was tribalized by American med

As an American progressive, here's how I feel about it. I have no doubt that others will have a different take. I don't think it was tribalized by American media; I think covid hit when much of the world, not least the US, was embroiled in tribalism. I wanted to know whether it had come from a lab leak, but at the time a lot of the lab-leak rhetoric was packaged along with racist and nationalist vitriol, to the point where people who appeared to be of Asian descent were being attacked in the street. So sensible people who suggested the virus may have come from a lab were out-shouted by people saying things like The election was stolen, Jews will not replace us, China virus, execute Fauci, being asked to wear a mask in Starbucks is like the Holocaust. I can forgive people for not wanting to try to pick out valid points from that particular torrent of bullshit. I think the resistance to the lab leak theory was less that people were dismissing science and more that the zone had been flooded and they were up to their neck in it.