These researchers, along with many around the world, have been studying these virii for decades, and throw new ones into their gain of function mill as they find them.

Seems like somebody got bit in the ass by this research, both at Ames in Ft. Detrick and Wuhan. We can't get good information because these releases are as obscured as invoking national secrecy could make them.

Chinese scientists published a paper pointing out the likely source of the pandemic was a virology lab in Wuhan. However, this research is shared amongst researchers all over the world, and Ft. Detrick was actually shut down in June last year because of a leak. Reports of a coronavirus in the wild surfaced long before patient zero is acknowledged to have arisen in Wuhan in November. The Ames release is supported by massive increases in ILI reported around the world starting in June, for instance in W. Australia where it increased by 800%.

This does not indicate a natural spread from the site of the June release, but a deliberate introduction regionally, whether to cover for the leak, or just implementing long range plans early to adapt to the leak.

Nothing about this pandemic is good news IMHO.