This is an important point. The research that, as I understand it (and IANAVirologist), helped jump-start the covid-19 vaccines was related to SARS and MERS, t

This is an important point. The research that, as I understand it (and IANAVirologist), helped jump-start the covid-19 vaccines was related to SARS and MERS, two coronaviruses that were already known to have infected humans, often lethally (and thus of urgent importance to study). Nobody (that I know of) objects to virologists studying existing viruses such as SARS and MERS. If the researchers in the article had just been studying wild-type covid-19, well it still should have been in a highest-safety lab, but it would have been less objectionable than this. Labs which are below the highest level of containment, could and should be studying coronaviruses of the sort that cause common colds (there are 4 of them, as I understand it). Making new (or hybrid) ones is not something that any but the highest level of containment facilities should be allowed to do.