I don’t know Dr. Baric personally, but it’s pretty clear that when gain-of-function (GOF) research was banned in the US, following ten years of acrimonious debate about it, UNC and at least one lab in Canada were functioning as cutouts so that funding for GOF could flow to Wuhan without a direct funding mechanism.
I’ve said all along that calling this the “CCP” virus was a misrepresentation of the facts, and if the most plausible scenario were ever proven, you could actually be looking at a regime crisis - an American Chernobyl.
I remember when stem cell research was relatively new and very controversial. Many universities set up research labs out of the country.
Johns Hopkins just did the same research offshore.
There are rumors floating around that China weaponized a hemorrhagic virus. I sure hope not, but remember when the Chinese spies stole one from a Canadian research lab.