Genomic scientists have already said, when it was first sequenced and the "bioweapon" thing started, that the recombinant event that led to this coronavirus (two or more beta coronaviruses infecting the same cell) has
both natural and laboratory possibilities. The original SARS virus was traced back with near certainty to horseshoe bats in a cave. The sequence in hundreds of infected bats was bang on, so no made-made origin there. It's impossible to know the exact pathway but those bats infected humans at some point, either directly with handling or through another animal.
Since then China (and other nations) have studied this virus family much more closely, so it's possible covid was the outcome of experimenting with human cells infected with multiple beta coronaviruses to study. Maybe it was released deliberately, or accidentally.
But, at the same time, nature didn't just stop since 2003. Coronaviruses have clearly been bubbling away in animal populations all this time as well. MERS is another "close call" in terms of a strain that becomes very transmissible human to human. In fact, pre-covid there was multiple warnings about coronaviruses infecting humans with high efficiency as a possible pandemic flashpoint. Scientists who study viruses have warned for years about coronaviruses, exercises have taken place (SPARS) to simulate and plan a coronavirus pandemic but by and large it had a fraction of attention compared to other viruses, chiefly influenza.
I mean, this stuff flew past us for years. It wasn't really on the public's radar. I hadn't heard of coronaviruses before 2020. I'd heard of SARS as an acronym but nothing in terms of the virus family specifically, the intricacies and dangers etc. I bet you hadn't either Stag, but we'd heard of influenza. Most pandemic preparedness and surveillance was predicated on the idea it would be an influenza strain. 2009 Swine flu mini-pandemic only cemented the idea that a full blown influenza pandemic would be the next one. But if you do the homework, there's warnings going back from mid-2000s that poor animal husbandry and transportation and handling of infected animals (bats, pigs, civets etc) was going to lead to a coronavirus pandemic just as much as an influenza one. As has been said before, whether it leaked from a lab or not is red herring because the lab driven stuff is right along the same lines of a natural recombinant as well so what difference does it make? In a nut shell so what if China spilled it into Wuhan a few months or years before it was due to come from some shit drenched cave anyway? What it does show is it's not an artificial virus with no chance of happening naturally, not unless pre-2020 all the papers and articles warning about it were time travellers or just incredibly good at guessing this 'billion to one event'