They didn't write that it was likely, just that NPR willingly participated in the Establishment campaign to suppress and distort the lab leak hypothesis.
My understanding is that expert opinion in recent months have been converging towards the lab leak theory. Consider this opinion piece[0], which points out some notable differences between the previous outbreaks of coronaviruses that had natural origins to Covid.
I'm not sure whether GP really wants to believe that Covid has man-made origins like you claim, but I think by now with all the evidence that has been released into the behind-the-scenes workings of Dr. Fauci et al[1] we can all agree that in the early days, a consensus was deliberately manufactured away from the lab leak theory. Moreover, there is clear public interest in discovering the true origin as well as preventing this type of politicization of the scientific process in the future.
