zlacker

Right. There is a very reasonable explanation for the work they were doing. They were trying to modify existing non harmful viruses, to determine if it could evolve into a harmful virus. In order to do this, they created a harmful virus. As long as the biocontainment is perfect, this is potentially useful research.

Unfortunately, SARS-CoV-2 is a very contagious virus, so it's hard to contain. A lot of ink has been spilled about the Wuhan BSL-4 lab, but these viruses were only considered to be a BSL-3 pathogen, and were handled in Baric's lab at UNC in their BSL-3. I would assume that they would also have been handled at the WIV's BSL-3. There had been reports of biocontainment lapses at the WIV, and there have been a number of lab escapes of various pathogens including SARS at other Chinese labs.