From the ACX post I linked in another comment, it seems that pre-pandemic the WiV was very much forthcoming and sent around notes of what viruses they'd collected and what they were doing to other countries' researchers:
> Are we sure they had neither [BANAL-52, which is one mutation away from COVID, and some other related virus]? Yes. Remember, WIV’s whole job was looking for new coronaviruses. They published lists of which ones they had found pretty regularly. They published their last list in mid-2019, just a few months before the pandemic. Although lab leak proponents claimed these lists showed weird discrepancies, this was just their inability to keep names consistent, and all the lists showed basically the same viruses (plus a few extra on the later ones, as they kept discovering more). The lists didn’t include BANAL-52 or any other suitable COVID relatives - only RATG-13, which isn’t close enough to work.
>
> Could they have been keeping their discovery of BANAL-52 secret? No. Pre-pandemic, there was nothing interesting about it; our understanding of virology wasn’t good enough to point this out as a potential pandemic candidate. WIV did its gain-of-function research openly and proudly (before the pandemic, gain-of-function wasn’t as unpopular as it is now) so it’s not like they wanted to keep it secret because they might gain-of-function it later. Their lists very clearly showed they had no virus they could create COVID from, and they had no reason to hide it if they did.
They haven't been at all forthcoming. They took down their databases, largely refused to provide detailed information, and it turned out in testimony I think they have over 2000 unpublished viruses in storage. Which to this day they refuse to provide information on or records or the like.
Apparently the viral dna/rna sequencing machines record a lot of data to disk and then software tries to reduce that to the info you want but the raw data contains sequences from everything around including odd bits of dust etc that got in. That data would show fairly conclusively whether they were guilty of not but will they share it? Oh no. I think they'd rather burn the lab down first.
> Are we sure they had neither [BANAL-52, which is one mutation away from COVID, and some other related virus]? Yes. Remember, WIV’s whole job was looking for new coronaviruses. They published lists of which ones they had found pretty regularly. They published their last list in mid-2019, just a few months before the pandemic. Although lab leak proponents claimed these lists showed weird discrepancies, this was just their inability to keep names consistent, and all the lists showed basically the same viruses (plus a few extra on the later ones, as they kept discovering more). The lists didn’t include BANAL-52 or any other suitable COVID relatives - only RATG-13, which isn’t close enough to work.
>
> Could they have been keeping their discovery of BANAL-52 secret? No. Pre-pandemic, there was nothing interesting about it; our understanding of virology wasn’t good enough to point this out as a potential pandemic candidate. WIV did its gain-of-function research openly and proudly (before the pandemic, gain-of-function wasn’t as unpopular as it is now) so it’s not like they wanted to keep it secret because they might gain-of-function it later. Their lists very clearly showed they had no virus they could create COVID from, and they had no reason to hide it if they did.