Covid-19 origin linked to lab leak – new US report

Lawmakers have concluded that the virus emerged from a research center in China, while accusing officials of spreading misinformation

Covid-19 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, the US Congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has concluded in a 520-page report, following a two-year investigation.

It discovered that the virus possessed a biological characteristic absent in nature, and data indicated that all Covid-19 cases stemmed from a single introduction to humans, reinforcing the ‘lab leak’ theory.

The report claims that the Chinese government, agencies within the US government, and some members of the international scientific community “sought to cover up facts concerning the origins of the pandemic.”

First detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, the coronavirus spread far beyond the country’s borders, killing over 7 million people across the world.

According to the report, China’s leading research laboratory for coronaviruses in Wuhan “has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels.” The document claims that researchers at the lab “were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.” “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced,” it went on to say.

At the outset of the pandemic, theories suggested that the virus emerged at a Chinese ‘wet market’. These traditional markets are known for often selling meat, fish, produce, and exotic animals in unsanitary conditions.

In 2020, however, then-President Donald Trump claimed without providing evidence that the virus originated from a Chinese lab. Beijing said the claim was a reelection tactic aimed at boosting Trump’s standing among Republican voters.

In a war of words, then-Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus might have been brought to China by the US military.

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In 2021, Trump said that China should pay reparations for its role in the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing that if the damage worldwide was properly estimated, it would likely owe upwards of $60 trillion.

That same year, Dr. Anthony Fauci – the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden at the time who faced intense criticism for his handling of the pandemic – said the implication that lab research led to the Covid-19 pandemic is “unconscionable” and “molecularly impossible.”

The report by the Select Committee also blasted the response of officials, saying, “members and staff have exposed high-level corruption in America’s public health system, confirmed the most likely origin of the pandemic, held COVID-19 bad actors publicly accountable, fostered bipartisan consensus on consequential pandemic-era issues.”