The White House on Friday officially endorsed the theory that the COVID-19 virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab.
The news came via a new website published by the White House laying out the evidence.
“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” the website reads. “A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely the origin of COVID-19.”
The theory that SARS-CoV-2 originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — which has a history of conducting coronavirus research and is located where the virus first emerged — has split experts and scientists from the beginning. It was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory before gaining traction.
Now, multiple federal agencies have said the Wuhan lab is the most likely source of the virus while others disagree.
The origins of COVID-19 remain a controversial topic, with most federal or international health organizations remaining undecided but favoring the theory that the virus originated from animals.
During the pandemic years, the Biden administration pressured tech companies to censor discourse supporting the lab leak theory.
In an over 100-page report conducted jointly by the World Health Organization and Chinese scientists, the WHO concluded that “[it] remains to be determined where SARS-CoV-2 originated,” but it “is thought to have had a zoonotic origin.”
But as early as 2020, the State department acknowledged there “is no direct, smoking gun evidence to prove that a leak from Wuhan labs caused the pandemic, but there is circumstantial evidence to suggest such is the case,” according to an investigative memo obtained by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK), a nonpartisan investigative public health group.
The U.S. Defense department’s intelligence agency also conducted a secret analysis of the virus in 2020, concluding that the molecular biology of the virus is “consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was a lab-engineered virus…that escaped from containment.” The analysis was only recently obtained and published by USRTK.
In January, the CIA shifted its position on the origins of the virus from undecided to “most likely” originating from a research lab in China, though the agency maintains that “both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
The new Trump administration website not only claims the virus was man-made but also accuses the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of “engag[ing] in a multi-year campaign of delay, confusion, and non-responsiveness” to obstruct inquiries into senior health officials’ pandemic response.
The White House points to incriminating findings from the massive two-year investigation into the origins of and response to the pandemic, conducted by the House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
The resulting report contained allegations that American nonprofit EcoHealth President Dr. Peter Daszak — who used taxpayer-funded federal grants to collaborate with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on novel coronavirus research — misled the committee on the virus’ origins.
The report alleged that both Daszak and former top U.S. health official Anthony Fauci possibly committed perjury when testifying before Congress.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., praised the opening of the new website in a Friday statement.
“Radical leftists slandered Americans as conspiracy theorists for following the facts, and now we all know who the true science deniers are based on the facts our investigation revealed,” Comer said. “President Trump is rightfully providing the American people with the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic.”
