I think we did see this. At least in one form. Directed evolution happened with Omicron. Omicron is a variant that had its roots from the very first version of COVID, not the Delta or Beta versions that were ravaging Africa at the time. All of a sudden this first cousin of the very original strain showed up in Africa, and its one modification made it far less lethal but far more invasive. How did it get there?
Both the US and China had easy access to the African village where Omicron was first detected. Clearly this was an example of “directed evolution”. But who did it? People assumed it was a government, but now we know that Pfizer was also a suspect. And maybe this was an elite/Bill Gates thing. We may never know. But we do know that Omicron is a man made thing.
Certainly brings up a lot of possibilities.