1. Because of risks and public health concerns, the Obama administration had banned (in October 2014), federal funding on efforts to weaponize three viruses – influenza, MERS, and SARS. Trump admin restarted this risky weaponization research in 2017. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08837-7

2. In the face of the ban in US, Dr Fauci – Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and currently on US Coronavirus Task Force – outsourced in 2015 research to China’s Wuhan lab and licensed the lab to receive US government funding.

3. So under Trump, not only had US restarted effort to make viruses more easily transmissible, US continued funding the Wuhan lab that’s now at the center of a controversy re its research into bat coronaviruses. At a recent briefing, Trump feigned ignorance at this funding. https://twitter.com/khanoisseur/status/1253075442954842113

4. BTW, I flagged this back in February — a Congressional probe can reveal whether Covid-19 causing coronavirus specimens were being shipped from Wuhan to US as part of research/caused an “accidental” outbreak in US—large number of US cases could be due to such an “accident” https://twitter.com/khanoisseur/status/1227266882757103627