We know this to be true. Here is a link from Vanity Fair, it really isn't disputed today, discussing how the "Wuhan lab leak theory" was spiked. Not only was it spiked, but suggesting COVID-19 started in a Chinese lab would get you deplatformed (you'd be banned and not allowed to post anything at all). Some people lost their jobs. You'd be made fun of on late-night talk shows and more.
If you don't have the time to read it, here is the main passage. The Lancet, perhaps the most respected medical journal in the world, released a piece that was signed by 27 of the world's highest-regarded scientists not just claiming the lab leak theory to be without merit, but suggesting anyone who talked about it was xenophobic and fostering hate to people of Chinese heritage. Of course, we now know that this theory is not only possible but probable.
Why would these scientists do this without really having the research to back it up? They were told to. A person, a consultant to the govt, was responsible for divvying up and doling out research money from the USA tax payers. This individual was one of the people responsible for funding the Wuhan Lab. He told them to do it and, I am sure, they knew grant money was on the line. So they did it. Worse, there is significant evidence to suggest that Dr. Fauci was one of the many people for the off-shoring gain of function viral research in China (and now, we know, Ukraine after the govt initially claimed it wasn't) because it was illegal to do so in the USA and most other developed nations.
On February 19, 2020, The Lancet, among the most respected and influential medical journals in the world, published a statement that roundly rejected the lab-leak hypothesis, effectively casting it as a xenophobic cousin to climate change denialism and anti-vaxxism. Signed by 27 scientists, the statement expressed “solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China” and asserted: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”
The Lancet statement effectively ended the debate over COVID-19’s origins before it began. To Gilles Demaneuf, following along from the sidelines, it was as if it had been “nailed to the church doors,” establishing the natural origin theory as orthodoxy. “Everyone had to follow it. Everyone was intimidated. That set the tone.”
Keep this in mind for the next time that a self-proclaimed "scientist" posts on this board or publishes an article. These people can be bought and paid for. As such, NONE of their research and findings can be credible until many years of usage and documentation has gone by. It is sad but it is true. And this will cost thousands, if not millions, of lives in the future. 
