“The Baric laboratory has never investigated strategies to create super viruses,”
.... “we prefer to call them ‘differently-abled viruses’ instead!”
A typical "nuanced" and tailored phrase. Baric doesn't even say they didn't create "super viruses" or that their research might not have resulted in a "super virus" just that they did not specifically investigate strategies to create "super viruses". That doesn't mean they didn't use existing strategies, or conduct research which others could use to create "super viruses".