It should be noted that the Chinese ambassador to the US was one of the first to equate the lab leak theory with bigotry and racism towards Chinese Americans.

There always have been and always will be ignorant rubes looking to indulge their prejudices. But as a society we can't allow the existence of these people to prevent us from disgusting legitimate scientific inquiry.

And that is essentially what was done.

It should be noted that a Chinese virologist who first made claims of it coming from a lab who was granted asylum in the United States was removed from Twitter for making these statements. The vitriol and anger directed at her and the fact that she was a published researcher were ignored with media always adding the words "claims to be a virologist" in front of her credentials.