Trump government launches site with theory that Covid-19 emerged in the laboratory

On the morning of Friday (18), the White House launched a new site defending the theory that coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, was an artificial pathogen that leaked from an infectious diseases laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The page rekindles a long debate on the origins of Covid-19 pandemic, which has been the target of investigations by federal agencies, global health organizations and congressional committees.

In January, the CIA released a report concluding that a laboratory leakage was likely, but with “low confidence” in this assessment, in parallel the similar conclusions of the energy and state departments.

The intelligence service had previously stated that it did not have enough information to determine the origin of the virus.

The World Health Organization has stated that it remains open to all hypotheses, including that the virus has spread from animals to people in a Wuhan market.

However, the new Trump administration’s website leads to laboratory leakage theory even further than most of these reports, stating that the virus “has a biological feature that is not found in nature” and “if there was evidence of a natural origin, it would have already arisen.

The Federal website Covid.gov, which previously contained links to information about vaccines, tests and treatments, now redirects to the White House laboratory leakage site.

Although US intelligence agencies remained open to the possibility that the virus was transmitted naturally during laboratory surveys, almost all previously agreed that it was not genetically modified.

Many scientists believe, based on virus analysis and in the early cases, that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans in a Wuhan market outbreak.

They also stated that the origin of the virus can never be proven.

In many ways, the new White House page echoes a final report issued last year by the Chamber’s select subcommittee on the Coronavirus pandemic, led by the Republicans, whose link is available on the site.

Republican members of the commission concluded last year that the virus originated in a laboratory; Democrats published a separate report that did not reach a definitive conclusion about the origins of the virus, but also pressured for more transparency.

Site points out alleged flaws in pandemic management

The new site also details faults perceived in response to Covid-19, including “lockdowns”, masks’ use, financing for infectious diseases and “obstruction” of the United States Health and Human Services (HHS) department and congressional investigations.

Some of these employees are appointed. A section of the page is dedicated to the preventive forgiveness granted by President Joe Biden to retired director of the National Institute of Infectious Allergy and Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Several Trump government officials, such as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., criticized the way the government dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic and, in particular, the Biden government response.

The site can trigger new health agency actions, as Kennedy criticized the broad requirements for the coronavirus vaccine and controversial studies on infectious diseases, known as function gain research.

Many republican congressmen have also asked the government to reinstate the prohibition of this type of research, which may involve making a virus more transmissible or alter other characteristics to study its dissemination.

A moratorium on function gain studies was suspended during the first Trump administration.

Last year, Biden’s authorities issued political guidelines that would impose a more rigorous supervision on function gain research, but would not broadly ban these studies.

The guidelines will come into force in May this year.

This content was originally published in Trump government launches site with theory that Covid-19 emerged in the laboratory on CNN Brazil.

Source: CNN Brasil