He absolutely did try to hide things. He tried to hide his relationship to the original Lancet article denouncing the lab leak theory, because he knew it was a staggering conflict of interest:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-...

Person organizing PR statement takes actions to make that PR statement as effective as possible? Not exactly a cover up. I don’t “like” my own instagram posts for the same reason.

It’s expected that conflicts of interest be disclosed in journalism and things like this. Instead he actively worked to hide his conflict of interest.

Exactly, and it looks like almost all of them did:

>All but one scientist who penned a letter in The Lancet dismissing the possibility that coronavirus could have come from a lab in Wuhan were linked to its Chinese researchers, their colleagues or funders, a Telegraph investigation can reveal.

Source: https://archive.ph/dXc0n

Scientists have to hold themselves to a higher ethical standard than PR flacks.