Thank you for another well researched, articulate, and well thought out piece.

If anything, the distance of time, and the opportunity to reflect make it harder for many to recall the fear and chaos as COVID spurted into our world. In the very early days, even Donald Trump was praising the Chinese for how open and informative they were being! https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736

As a scientist, I disagree with the conclusion of not looking into certain boxes. It was only through similar research that we eradicated smallpox, a scourge which killed hundreds of millions (in a world with many fewer humans) from the natural world. But such research demands a level of precaution and transparency that we don't often enough live up to.