But gain of function is a new invention—it only really started in 2011 and funding was banned in 2014, then the moratorium was lifted in 2017. The 2011-2014 period had little or no coronavirus gain of function work as far as I am aware. So coronavirus gain of function from a lab could only have occurred after say 2010 and was most likely after 2017 when it had the combination of technology and funding.
Ralph Baric’s lab was doing work that he thought would fall under the gain-of-function ban in 2014. He published the paper where Fauci said in front of congress that it contained no gain-of-function while Fauci gave the paper the file title when he mailed it around of “Baric, Shi et al—Nature medicine—SARS Gain of function.pdf”.
While his funding was stopped temporarily the NIH decided not to honor the moratorium and continued funding his research through the EcoHealth grant in the official time of the moratorium.
This assumes that the moratorium actually prevented gain-of-function research on Coronaviruses in any meaningful sense and that the NIH honored it. That does not seem to have happened.
Ralph Baric’s lab was doing work that he thought would fall under the gain-of-function ban in 2014. He published the paper where Fauci said in front of congress that it contained no gain-of-function while Fauci gave the paper the file title when he mailed it around of “Baric, Shi et al—Nature medicine—SARS Gain of function.pdf”.
While his funding was stopped temporarily the NIH decided not to honor the moratorium and continued funding his research through the EcoHealth grant in the official time of the moratorium.
This assumes that the moratorium actually prevented gain-of-function research on Coronaviruses in any meaningful sense and that the NIH honored it. That does not seem to have happened.