We already know the NIH partially funded field survey work that appears to be very similar to this. It's pretty obvious to see that they continued applying elsewhere and may have been successful in getting the funding the requested. It just might be from several grants.
If you were doing research that led to a global pandemic that killed millions of people, would you then publish your results? I have a feeling that might not have the effect of showing you're "good for the next one."
Obviously the lack of evidence isn't proof that this happened, but I also don't think it's safe to say that it's proof it didn't.
Oh, that’s right, they didn’t. You can tell that by looking at what they did work on next. Did you look?
Like it says in the article.