Russia, China, and Iran and Covid

A fairly short article at National Review.  The intent is to try and suss out some sort of estimate, even if it is a year later, through the fog of obviously-dishonest numbers. The main strategy seems to be "Just call it something other that Covid.  Anything."

It is worth noting before going in that the reports circulating about Covid in other places earlier than the winter of 2019-2020 in China are consistent with the lab-leak theory, and especially with multiple leaks.  If they had been doing gain-of-function research, then there would have been more versions of the coronavirus, perhaps even many versions, depending on how far back the research goes.  These would have been less deadly, but similar enough to the current disease to show up as positive tests when testing the sewage in aggregate or other retrospective, geographic tests.