I heard a lot of people discussing this possibility including liberals and leftists, but there was and still is a taboo against discussing it publicly. Most of the public articles I saw on it were sensationalistic pieces from far-right news sources, and I flagged those. I upvoted one sanely written scientific paper on the subject, and posted this because it was also not sensationalistic.
The problem is that if we discuss the possibility or the suspicion in public, a lot of people are going to run all the way to it being a certainty. This could lead to some fairly destructive geopolitical consequences with the worst case scenario being a world war that could kill far more people than the virus. It is prudent to be careful and maintain a high standard of evidence just like we should in our justice system: "innocent until proven guilty."
The problem is that if we discuss the possibility or the suspicion in public, a lot of people are going to run all the way to it being a certainty. This could lead to some fairly destructive geopolitical consequences with the worst case scenario being a world war that could kill far more people than the virus. It is prudent to be careful and maintain a high standard of evidence just like we should in our justice system: "innocent until proven guilty."