Assuming the factual premises of what you're saying are true, the problem with the lab-leak thing was that it was bandied about by Trump and his supporters as some kind of excuse for his poor handling of the pandemic (which began before the pandemic even started via his dismantling of certain government functions meant to deal with such outbreaks). They also were people who wanted to downplay the severity of the disease overall, act like everything could continue as normal (for largely selfish reasons), etc.

Don't get me wrong--I think the initial response to Covid was probably overzealous, and it has lasted way too long (once we had vax, everyone should have been done with it).

My point is simply that they wielded the info/idea in an ideological way, and this led to it being dismissed, whereas if the idea was discussed and established among experts first, it would have been taken more seriously. In other words, bare, unregulated, irresponsible free speech did harm in advancing this idea.