Replies

no, they used a ‘cousin’ virus. Not SARS.

most likely, this one:
“ Baric presented the work by Deng et al. (2014), who proposed to optimize a safer mouse model for in vivo drug screening using the non-pathogenic recombinant Sindbis virus (alphavirus) expressing a SARS proteinase”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/

Baric gets more specific here: (your link)
“The sequences of SHC014 and the related RsWIV1-CoV show that these CoVs are the closest relatives to the epidemic SARS-CoV strains (Fig. 1a,b); however, there are important differences...SHC014 was about 12 percent different from SARS.”

again, not SARs, but a relative

which created a weaker, not stronger, virus. (also from your link)
“Dr. Stanley Perlman at the University of Iowa... noted the hybrid virus was attenuated — weakened — and said the virus would probably need to adapt more in people before it could spread widely.”

And the research came to a screeching halt:

” they had to stop some of their work because of US government policies. The US has a moratorium on so-called gain-of-function research, which includes some research that enhances the ability of a pathogen such as a virus to infect people or spread among them.”

And why did they have to stop? Because in 2014 the funding stopped. And why did the funding stop? Because the USA killed the funding on pathogenic virus manipulation in 2014. Making any breach illegal:

White House. U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses. 2014a.
http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf

2014, not Sars. No funding for 2015. No illegal research in 2015. Not Chapel Hill in 2015.