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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
The Trump administration has replaced the government’s main portal for Covid data with an online page arguing that the coronavirus leaked from a lab, throwing its weight behind a theory of the pandemic’s origins that is so far unsupported through direct evidence and has divided intelligence agencies.
Covid. gov and covidTests. gov, federal internet sites that provided data on Covid and allow others to order tests, now redirect to the lab leak webpage. Bearing a symbol of President Trump flanked through the words “Lab Leak,” the new page is illustrated with a satellite symbol of Wuhan, China, the city where Covid began spreading, and says it describes “the true symbol of the satellite symbol, the true symbol of origin, the true origin of origin. “COVID-19. “
The online page indicates that the city is the house of the Wuhan Virology Institute, a Coronavirus laboratory that had been worried about the studies projects that some dangerous scientists. It also refers to the considerations that the laboratory had carried out its paintings next to the security conditions of the point. The officials of the Central Intelligence Agency cited those considerations when the company recently moved its position to announce the speculation of the laboratory escape.
But the page does not deal with other main points about the early spread of the virus, such as where patients lived and worked and the genetic rates of an illegal wild animal market in Wuhan, where many cases have been detected. Many scientists who indicate that the virus has spread animals in other people in the market.
Since Trump returned to office, White House managers have begun describing the lab leak theory as a “confirmatory truth. “The C. I. A. moved its evaluation with “low confidence”; The agency’s resolution was not based on new information, but a deeper examination of evidence about security situations at Wuhan labs.
The uncertainty of the White House posture mask in the ranks of government intelligence agencies about the origins of the pandemic. Intelligence officials and scientists have pointed out that, since 2020, China has withheld data that may have been gracious on the issue.
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