Fun fact: Up to the Civil War or WWI, more soldiers died of illness than of battle wounds. So much for the fabled immune system. And if WWI killed more soldiers in battle, the flu still won that round, because the Spanish Flu killed heaps more later. Now we still remember WWI for its bloodiness, but without Covid-19, who would remember the Spanish Flu?
I think we, as intelligent people, can agree that the quality of those concerns and the basis of the concerns have been low, and in bad faith respectively. In that light, it seems obvious that we as a society should press on with the promising research like this.