The White House has replaced a federal website that provided information about COVID-19 with a web page titled “Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19” that cites the controversial theory that the virus was leaked from a Wuhan lab in China.
The previous websites, covidtests.gov and covid.gov, provided information on treatment options for COVID-19, vaccinations and testing. Those sites now redirect to the new webpage that features an image of President Donald Trump walking between the words “Lab” and “Leak.”
According to the lab leak theory, COVID-19 originated from an accidental release of the SARS-CoV-2 virus at a government-run research facility in Wuhan, China, before spreading around the world.
In December, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic led by U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, released a report stating that the virus “most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan” and includes arguments to support the “lab leak” theory.
The White House’s new webpage mimics the report’s findings, stating, “A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely the [sic] origin of COVID-19. Current government mechanisms for overseeing this dangerous gain-of-function research are incomplete, severely convoluted, and lack global applicability.”
The new page also states The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 publication “was prompted by Dr. [Anthony] Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated in nature.”
The Proximal Origin publication was disseminated in Nature in 2020 and revealed a scientific consensus that “analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”
The White House’s new webpage further claims the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “engaged in a multi-year campaign of delay, confusion, and non-responsiveness in an attempt to obstruct the Select Subcommittee’s investigation and hide evidence that could incriminate or embarrass senior public health officials. It appears that HHS even intentionally under-resourced its component that responds to legislative oversight requests.”
It criticizes the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) response to the pandemic, the six-feet social distancing recommendation, mask efficacy, prolonged lockdowns and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s order, “which forced nursing homes to accept COVID-19 positive patients.”
It says public health officials like Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the pandemic, misled the American people, and the site displays President Joe Biden’s document pardoning Fauci.
Information on COVID-19 can still be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, and an archived version of covid.gov is available here.
THE LARGER TREND
Last year, Fauci was called before a House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to testify about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lawmakers questioned whether his agency was involved in an email coverup to hide the theory that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Fauci strongly denied the allegations and said he believed the most likely origin of COVID was animal-to-human transmission, but he had an open mind regarding the lab theory.
“I’ve also been very, very clear, and said multiple times, that I don’t think the concept of there being a lab [leak] is inherently a conspiracy theory,” Fauci said, according to Reuters.
“What is conspiracy is the kind of distortions of that particular subject, like it was a lab leak, and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak.”
The origins of the COVID-19 pandemic have long been a topic of debate.
In a 2021 report penned by the WHO and Chinese scientists, the joint teams said the likelihood of zoonotic spillover (or the transmissions of disease-causing pathogens from animals to humans) was considered a possible-to-likely pathway when considering the origins of COVID-19.
The report said the introduction of the virus through a laboratory incident was “considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway.”
In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Energy Department concluded that the virus most likely arose from a laboratory leak, “according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.”
“The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided,” the WSJ wrote.
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