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The White House threw its weight over the lab leak theory, a concept that has divided intelligence agencies.
By Benjamin Mueller
Trump’s management has replaced the government’s main portal for downloading data on Covid with an online page arguing that the coronavirus has fled to a lab, throwing its weight behind a theory of the origins of the pandemic that has so far not been supported through direct evidence and that has divided intelligence agencies.
Covid. gov and Covidtest. gov, federal websites that provided data on Covvid and allow others to order the tests, now redirect to the lab leak page. With a symbol of President Trump flanking the words “lab leaks,” the new page is illustrated through a satellite symbol of Wuhan, China, the city where Covid began to spread and says it will describe “the genuine origins of Covid-19. “
The online page indicates that the city is the house of the Wuhan Virology Institute, a Coronavirus laboratory that had worried about the studies projects that some dangerous scientists. He also alluded to considerations that the laboratory had carried out his paintings in unsafe conditions. The officials of the central intelligence agency cited those considerations when the company recently changed its position to favor the hypothesis of the laboratory escape.
But the page does not cover other main points about the early spread of the virus, such as where patients lived and worked and the genetic tracks of an illegal wildlife market in Wuhan, where many cases have been detected. Many scientists that the data indicate that the virus has spread from animals to other people in the market.
Since Trump returned to office, White House officials have begun describing the lab leak theory as a “confirmable truth. “The C. I. A. has moved its evaluation with “low confidence”; The agency’s resolution was not based on new information, but a closer look at the evidence about protective situations in Wuhan’s labs.
The uncertainty of the White House posture mask in the ranks of government intelligence agencies on the origins of pandemic. Intelligence officials and scientists have indicated that, since 2020, China has retained data that may have thrown gentle on the subject.
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