It’s obviously possible, as similar incidents have happened before at BSL-3 & BSL-4 facilities, but luckily not lead to cascading pandemic levels of spread.
But it’s also impossible to prove this far removed from the event.
No solution or ban on this kind of research is bulletproof, but if people actually care about this shit though, they should push for an internationally standardized process for actual auditing & oversight of BSL-3 & 4 facilities. I do think you could convince some of these people who are genuinely concerned enough to support something like that, but it’s unlikely the natsec state would go along with the creation of a civilian/public agency to monitor their researchers and take biological samples to trace potential outbreaks after-the-fact. And plenty of these people would only be concerned when “China does it” and not care when it’s Ft Detrick or UNC Chapel Hill…
Who knows though, the BU researchers seem to have pissed everyone off with their recent COVID gain-of-function/compelled evolution research. Which they apparently didn’t even clear with anyone somehow? Maybe that was fake news, seemed unlikely to me but who knows. People are stupid and essentially anyone motivated enough can do those experiments, it’s just extremely unsafe.
