How is this news? It didn't "suddenly" become credible. Josh Rogin wrote and entire book about this. It was brought up at the time and dismissed away as wild conspiracy.
In the wake of the SARS outbreak teams were actively investigating bats and potential viruses. The issue was the containment lab in Wuhan. The US Embassy Health and Science personnel sent three teams from 2017-2018 to meet with WIV scientists, including the infamous "Bat Lady". Upon learning how dangerous the understaffed lab was, two additional cables were sent to DC. Then Wuhan scientists themselves were hospitalized in 2019 with Covid-like symptoms
US officials at the Beijing Embassy prompted alerts from the lab about a series shortage of trained technicians to safely operate such a high-containment lab. When it did "leak" into the open, the original scientists claiming it came from the wild were vested Chinese from the lab itself. It was EcoHealth head Peter Daszak that sent the original letter back to the US mirroring this narrative who's own scientists were working in tandem with them and tied together. GOF specifically, which Obama blocked domestically back in 2014, was being partially funded in China by the NIH.