One notion out there is that there are no policy implications one way or the other if the virus emerged naturally or escaped from a lab. This might be true in the sense that it wouldn’t have changed how we responded to the pandemic in real time, but it still matters a lot. If the virus came from the Wuhan lab, there’d obviously be even more debate about how and why we conduct the research that was involved, and, more fundamentally, it would implicate the Chinese government in a truly monstrous cover-up that would severely damage its reputation and its relationship with U.S. The Chinese government realizes this, which is why, if there was a lab leak, it has every incentive to keep us from ever knowing.