White House promotes lab leak theory of COVID-19 origins on revamped website; targets Biden, Fauci

The White House has doubled down on its contentious theory that the coronavirus originated from a lab leak in China in its newly unveiled COVID-19 website. Under the new administration, the White House has launched a revamped website about COVID-19 that promotes the ‘lab leak’ theory and also criticises former US President Joe Biden, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Anthony Fauci, the former top US health official.The Covid.gov website, unveiled on Friday, was earlier focused on disseminating vaccine and testing information. It now includes President Donald Trump’s full-length image and what it claims are the ‘true origins’ of the pandemic. More than one million have died of coronavirus and related illnesses in the United States since 2020.

According to AFP, the White House

’s new coronavirus website presents five bullet points on the lab leak theory. The site stated that Wuhan, which is where the first known coronavirus case was detected, contains China’s ‘foremost SARS research lab,’ which has been conducting ‘inadequate biosafety levels’ for a long time.
“By nearly all measures of science, if there were evidence of a natural origin, it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” the website mentioned.The website was also critical of measures enacted by the Biden administration during the pandemic, such as social distancing, mask mandates and lockdowns. It accused Biden and Fauci for advancing what it termed the “preferred narrative that Covid-19 originated naturally.”

The revamped portal, under the ‘COVID-19 misinformation’ section, accused public health officials under the Biden administration of not stating the benefits of ‘alternative treatments’ and collaborating with social media companies to censor dissenting views, particularly those by conservatives, about the pandemic.

This charge has frequently been levied by Trump supporters against the Biden administration.

According to a Reuters report, Fauci, Biden and WHO did not provide any immediate comments on the website or the accusations.

As for China, the country has been critical of the lab leak theory since it first originated. In January, after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) changed its official stance to state that it was ‘more likely’ that the coronavirus originated from a leak at a Chinese lab rather than natural transmission from animals, Beijing said that the accusations had no credibility.

The Chinese government had accused the US of politicising the origins of the coronavirus.

The revamped website comes amid two big changes in US policy- the escalating trade war with China and the appointment of known vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr as the health secretary. Kennedy and Trump have also initiated widespread job cuts in the US health department. According to reports, 10,000 people could be laid off from the agency.