Shan Chao was directed to "find out which one had the best ability to infect as many species as possible," and to "find out how easy it was to infect other species."
On Jan. 27, 2020, EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak sent an email to Dr. David Morens, a subordinate of Dr. Anthony Fauci at NIAID, that contained a not-very-subtle warning. Fauci had not yet been appointed to former President Donald Trump's Coronavirus Task Force and was thus largely unknown to the public at large at this point.
The wife of a Wuhan lab researcher working on coronaviruses died of what appeared to be COVID-19 in December 2019, the leader of a State Department investigation under the Trump administration told the Daily Caller News Foundation.