This is gross oversimplification. The fact that some scientists may know doesn't imply that the only possibility is deliberate action.
Since there have been a lot of money poured on Coronaviruses research in the last decade, it's reasonable that, (important!) even not assuming a lab leak (/important!), scientists working on it, don't want to disclose it.
Even those who didn't work on it are disincentived to talk about it, as their reputation is on the line (in particular, because of the misguided opinion that lab leak equals bioengineerd virus). A few co-subscribers of the Lancet letter changed their mind on the topic. It doesn't surprise me that they did it only recently - precisely because their position is now less endangered.
> This pandemic was predicted for many years by scientist
It's hard to extract any value from this, especially without a very serious analysis, because at any point in time, there will be people predicting that events of any kind will happen.
What do you know that the U.S. president and U.S. intelligence doesn't?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/wuhan-coron...
> The two main hypotheses — that the virus jumped from animals to humans in a natural process, or that it escaped from a research laboratory in China — remain on the table, ODNI said. Both theories are plausible, the agencies concluded.
Fact check: false. The early cases in Wuhan almost all cluster near the wet market, not the virology lab, which is on the outskirts of town on the other side of the river some ~30km from the market. (And to the extent they don't cluster near that market, they do favor quite strongly the market's side of the river, not the virology lab's side of the river.)
> Biden called for U.S. intelligence to figure out if the original virus came from a lab
Because a government has never, ever called for an investigation or an action to be taken because of political pressure despite its internal knowledge bases saying there is no need to investigate it.
To be considered:
> the Wuhan CDC ‘hosted animals in laboratories for research purpose, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification’. Moreover, the Xiaos described how a lead researcher at this laboratory who collected bats had featured in articles and at least one broadcast video revealing that ‘he was once attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection so he quarantined himself for 14 days. In another accident, he quarantined himself again because bats peed on him.’ Given that ‘surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing’, relatively close to the Huanan seafood market where clusters of Covid-19 cases had been detected, it was reasonable to ask whether an accident had occurred, the two scientists argued.
If a case like this was hypothetically true, it would sit on a line between zoonotic origin and lab leak. Remember that lab leak doesn't imply bioengineering.
> the virology lab, which is [...] some ~30km from the market.
Independently of lab leak or not, this is wrong. You can check on google maps that by car (and even more in a straight line), is less than 15 km.
Crucially, however, the now famous “earliest” COVID-19 case (1), a 41-year-old male accountant, who lived 30 km south of Huanan Market and had no connection to it—illness onset reported as 8 December—may have become ill with COVID-19 considerably later. . . . This suggests that he may have been infected through community transmission after the virus had begun spreading from Huanan Market.
[C]onclusive evidence of a Huanan Market origin from infected wildlife may nonetheless be obtainable through analysis of spatial patterns of early cases and from additional genomic data, including SARS-CoV-2–positive samples from Huanan Market, as well as through integration of additional epidemiologic data. Preventing future pandemics depends on this effort.
[EDIT:] But you're right about the "deliberate inaction". The obvious way to fight pandemics (as opposed to less contagious health threats) is to make sure everyone in society has access to relevant health care and other vital resources. This came naturally to many societies that earned much lower covid death rates than USA earned.