The Daily Populous Saturday April 19th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by abcnews.go.com and submitted by CupidStunt13

The website once had resources for vaccines, testing and treatment for COVID-19.

The White House has redirected COVID.gov to a new landing page called " Lab Leak: True Origins of COVID-19, " which makes a five-point argument for the theory that COVID-19 originated from a mistaken lab leak in Wuhan, China.

Web page for https://www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19/ on April 18, 2025. The White House

The new site appears to use theories from the final report of the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, released in December 2024 . There has never been a consensus or a "smoking gun" to explain what started the pandemic.

The COVID.gov page, as recently as last week, listed resources for testing, treatment, and vaccination against COVID-19, as well as information for Long COVID.

The five pieces of evidence put forth by the White House for the theory include the following assertions: that the "virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature," that data shows all cases "stem from a single introduction into humans," that "Wuhan is home to China's foremost SARS research lab," that researchers at that research lab "were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019," and that "if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced."

The page includes claims that government officials, including former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, helped edit and then amplify a research paper on the origins of COVID-19 published in 2020 that supported natural origin theory.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and former chief medical adviser to President Biden, becomes emotional after being asked about threats to him and his family, as he testifies before a House Oversight and Reform Select Subcommittee hearing on the Coronavirus Pandemic, on Capitol Hill, June 3, 2024. Leah Millis/Reuters, FILE

The current page suggests this paper's explicit intention was to discredit the lab leak theory and remove any doubt that the origins were of natural origin. This is not a new accusation and in the past Fauci and the paper authors disagreed with the accusations that the paper was manipulated or had any specific goal.

The origins of the pandemic have been hotly debated since its start.

The prevailing theories always seemed to focus on two scenarios: either natural exposure to an infected animal or an accidental lab leak.

With no "smoking gun" and limited access to raw data, discussion of the science has played out in a haze of circumstantial evidence.

In October 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report on the intelligence community's views on the origin conundrum, which also leaned toward a natural spillover, but represented divided views. A subsequent declassified report released in 2023 also noted that most of the intelligence community was split on the origins of the pandemic. In reports, US agencies generally agreed that the virus was most likely not developed as a biological weapon and that China's leaders did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic.

The new splash page features a photo of Fauci and the pardon that former President Joe Biden granted him, highlighting that it was for "any offenses." The page also accuses federal agencies, including NIH and HHS, of breaking laws and violating rules about transparency and cooperation with Congressional investigation. The agencies complied with FOIA requests and other regulatory requests from the committee and also appeared before lawmakers when asked to testify.

The web page also calls into question the efficacy of social distancing, masking and lockdown. The White House also criticized the response from New York officials.

Fauci testified about the accusations before lawmakers in 2024, saying that accusations about him covering up or influencing research about the lab leak theory are untrue.

"The accusation being circulated that I influenced the scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false, and simply preposterous. I had no input into the content of the published paper," Fauci said in June of 2024.

"The second issue is a false accusation that I tried to cover up the possibility that the virus originated from a lab. In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite," Fauci said during that 2024 hearing.

Nurse practitioner Deborah Beauplan administers a COVID-19 swab test at a drive-thru testing site set up for Suffolk County, New York, employees and their families at Smith Point Park in Shirley, New York, Dec. 18, 2020. John Paraskevas/Newsday via Getty Images

This is not the first time that the White House has made clear its position on the origins of COVID-19. In January, President Trump said that COVID-19 had "strained" his relationship with President Xi Jinping of China.

"But, I like President Xi very much. I've always liked him. We always had a very good relationship. It was very strained with COVID coming out of Wuhan. Obviously, that strained it. I'm sure it strained it with a lot of people, but that strained our relationship," Trump said in remarks to the World Economic Forum.

ABC News' Eric Strauss, Sony Salzman and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.

Mimopotatoe on April 19th, 2025 at 00:21 UTC »

What in the megalomania is that webpage header? A picture of Trump photoshopped to look thinner walking out of the words “lab leak” and a swirly signature font to write “covid 19.” This has to be AI graphic design

Grundlestiltskin_ on April 19th, 2025 at 00:13 UTC »

Site looks like a junior high web design project

deaner_wiener1 on April 19th, 2025 at 00:12 UTC »

I’m not even opposed to the Lab Leak theory and think it’s an entirely possible, or even probable, cause of COVID.

But the presentation of this information is not dissimilar to crackhead conspiracy. Horribly unprofessional page and incredibly divisive.

They don’t know how to implement unifying (and ultimately patriotic) policy and it’s frightening