Damage international relations and cooperation in the middle of a pandemic. You have US Senators out there pushing this thing. That’s going to offend the Chinese government. At the absolute least, it will distract people from cooperating.
Cause another wave of anti-Asian, and specifically anti-Chinese, racist attacks. Such attacks happened even when everybody thought the whole thing was an accident. If you make them believe it was deliberate (on edit: they will believe this even if the rumor is that it was an accident, and there’s still a big problem if they only believe it was careless), they will definitely do it more.
In short, providing oxygen to rumors like this makes them more credible and more available to idiots. Idiots are predictable elements of the world, and you can reasonably anticipate their responses to the conditions you create.
Because it is likely to:
Damage international relations and cooperation in the middle of a pandemic. You have US Senators out there pushing this thing. That’s going to offend the Chinese government. At the absolute least, it will distract people from cooperating.
Cause another wave of anti-Asian, and specifically anti-Chinese, racist attacks. Such attacks happened even when everybody thought the whole thing was an accident. If you make them believe it was deliberate (on edit: they will believe this even if the rumor is that it was an accident, and there’s still a big problem if they only believe it was careless), they will definitely do it more.
In short, providing oxygen to rumors like this makes them more credible and more available to idiots. Idiots are predictable elements of the world, and you can reasonably anticipate their responses to the conditions you create.