Until Friday, Americans going to the federal government's online COVID-19 portal could find information about masking, free testing, and treatment for infections of the disease that has killed more than 1 million people in the US. Now anyone going to Covid.gov and Covidtests.gov is redirected to a White House page that proclaims a leak from a lab in China as "The True Origins of Covid-19," USA Today reports—a possibility that President Trump has long endorsed. Instead of providing information about long COVID, the page criticizes Democrats, the World Heath Organization, and Dr. Anthony Fauci for their response to the pandemic.
The page makes five arguments for the lab leak being the birthplace of the disease. One is that evidence of a natural origin would have surfaced if it existed. But there isn't direct evidence for the lab leak theory, either. One point is that the lab wasn't operated safely, which the CIA said when it gave more credence to the leak possibility. But the page sidesteps holes in its theory and evidence that the virus went from animals to humans at an illegal wild-animal market, per the New York Times. And there's no evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had a virus that could have become the one that sparked the pandemic.
There's still no broad consensus about the origin, per the Hill, which scientists say is not unusual with a virus. Many Republicans have backed Trump on the lab theory, and one welcomed the website change. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks posted on X that "the truth is coming to light." The toll from COVID has plunged since the height of the pandemic, but in recent months, hundreds of deaths in the US are being recorded each week. (More COVID-19 stories.)
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