I know I got downvotes already but I guess that’s what I meant, that in a lab setting human researchers would have been manipulating the virus. I meant that I don’t think anyone is saying that researchers captured a novel COVID variant in nature and just held it in a lab until it leaked.

If the lab theory holds any water, it’s almost certain that humans were manipulating the virus in some form.

That’s why I don’t see much of a distinction between a lab leak theory and a human-made or human-manipulated virus.