I think regardless of whether the virus came from the lab (which I think is the most likely explanation), gain of function research is a terrible idea - which of course even the US govt recognized, which is why we paused it in the US.

I don't think there's a safe way to engineer real live viruses by making them more dangerous and infectious. I'm not even quite sure if there's a valid reason to do this kind of research outside of giving PhDs/bureaucrats jobs.