They weren't responding to any body of evidence. There was zero at that time, on either side. They were trying to get out in front and head off what they thought was something reasonable people would include in their consideration of origins.
They had no evidence either way but knew that they had a lot to lose, and fired everything they had.
The letter didn’t blame racism, the letter cited several genomic analyses that actually had already been conducted by that point, and to my knowledge that letter didn’t disrupt any research into the virus’s origins. Open to seeing evidence otherwise though.
They had no evidence either way but knew that they had a lot to lose, and fired everything they had.