White House touts Covid-19 ‘lab leak’ theory on new website By Sarah Owermohle, CNN
The US government’s Covid.gov website now redirects to the White House’s new lab leak website. Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images
The federal website Covid.gov, which previously linked to information about vaccines, testing and treatment, now redirects to the White House’s lab leak website.
The White House on Friday morning launched a new website championing the theory that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was a human-made pathogen that leaked from an infectious disease laboratory in Wuhan, China.
The page revives a long debate about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic that has seen investigations by federal agencies, global health organizations and congressional committees. In January, the CIA issued a report concluding that a lab leak was likely, but with “low confidence” in that judgment, paralleling similar conclusions from the Energy and State departments.
The CIA had previously said it did not have enough information to make a determination about where the virus originated. The World Health Organization has said it remains open to all hypotheses, including that the virus spread from animals to people in a Wuhan market.
Medical staff members transport a patient on a stretcher at the Pedro DellAntonia Sports Complex field hospital as coronavirus cases soar on March 11, 2021 in Santo Andre, Brazil. The state of Sao Paulo has reached over 80% occupancy in intensive care units and has declared a red alert as the spread of COVID-19 has accelerated in Brazil in recent weeks. State Health Minister Jean Gorinchteyn announced that they are already recruiting health professionals for reinforcement and working in 140 extra ICUs to prevent the collapse of the health system. 38 patients with COVID-19 have already died on the waiting list for ICU’s beds in the state in the first ten days of March.
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Yet the Trump administration’s new website takes the lab leak theory even further than most of those reports, stating that the virus “possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature” and “if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.” The federal website Covid.gov, which previously linked to information about vaccines, testing and treatment, now redirects to the White House’s lab leak website.
While US intelligence agencies have remained open to the possibility the virus was naturally transmitted during lab research, they nearly all previously agreed it was not genetically engineered. Many scientists believe, based on analyses of the virus and early cases, that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans in an outbreak at the Wuhan market. They’ve also said that the origin of the virus may never be proved.
US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary appeared to defend the website change during a Fox News interview Friday afternoon.
“I think people want some closure. The entire nightmare of Covid for three-plus years was likely entirely avoidable, had we not [been] messing with Mother Nature in a way that they should not have,” Makary said. He added that people also want answers on prolonged school closures and vaccine requirements.
