Americans had a role to play here as well: In 2014, Obama administration halted the so called "gain of function" research because of laboratory accidents. In

Americans had a role to play here as well: In 2014, Obama administration halted the so called "gain of function" research because of laboratory accidents. In 2017, Trump administration restarted the research. See links below. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-funding-for-risky-biological-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-fun... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih... The U.S. government, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provided funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, an American non-profit organization focused on studying emerging diseases. The EcoHealth Alliance, in turn, provided funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China for researching bat coronaviruses.