Well, if they haven’t had political unrest before...having a modified virus reach the general public might ‘encourage’ that going forward.
It takes longer in authoritarian societies, but, information wants to be free. And will seek a path to do so eventually.
I can envision a situation where research materials were improperly disposed and ‘transferred’ to a population of rats/bats/etc and thus to the humans in the area.
Or they’ve got a resident ‘doomer’ working in one of those facilities that did it deliberately.
I’d love to know what drew their attention to these few (initially) cases so quickly. What made them notice the ‘signal’ there over all the ‘noise’ of other respiratory illnesses/hospitalizations in a city of 11M people...And sample/sequence/identify it so quickly...
Given the history of lack of hygiene within the confines of China,
and also the fact that Wuhan is larger and more congested than any city in the U.S.
improper disposal of research materials seems quite possible, if not probable.