NIH funded a project to manipulate coronaviruses in Wuhan so they would be able to infect humans

According to the document:

• The project involved, among other tasks, performing gain-of-function on bat coronavirus SARSr-CoV WIV1, with the aim of studying its potential ability to infect humans.
• The researchers believed regulations on gain-of-function research did not apply in this case, since the original virus did not affect humans, despite the desired product virus being able to do so.
• Their risk assessment does not include the possibility of the newly created virus accidentally infecting workers or human research subjects.
• The resulting viruses were to be tested on both human tissues and modified mice with human ACE2 enzyme.
• Human subjects from "high-risk areas" were involved on-site for non-experimental purposes.
• These experiments were performed within facilities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• The phase of the project wherein these experiments were first mentioned started on June 2019.

Additionally, this adds:

• The entire project started in June 2014 and initially involved collecting virus samples from different sources, including the wildlife market in Wuhan.