This is Beyond My Level

If there are any virologists out there can you tell if this article makes sense?  He is not saying COVID-19 was a bioweapon.  He is saying it could have been made as part of virology research not so different from that being done elsewhere in recent years, which escaped from the lab by accident.

4/27/20 Newsweek presents a simplified version with comments by U.S. intelligence services with similar conclusions.

What followed was a fierce debate among scientists over the risks versus benefits of the gain-of-function research. Fouchier's work, wrote Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch in the journal Nature in 2015, "entails a unique risk that a laboratory accident could spark a pandemic, killing millions."