https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038

The highlight of the article, describes the work done by Dr Shi, in conjuction with UNC, which was essentially trying every possible way to make the bat virus be able to attack human cells. It took them 6-7 years of intense research. All in the name of "being able to predict and be prepared when a natural pandemic occurs", which clearly was a failure from what we have seen.

What this means, in non-technical language, is that Dr. Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people.

After reading this article, I have no doubt these people knew exactly what they were doing. So many scientists turned a blind eye, and failed to call out when they needed to. Honestly, makes you lose faith in humanity.