How the lab thesis gets Joe Biden into trouble Spiny mini-dragon: new species of gecko discovered in Australia

What fiery Trumpist Lauren Boebert said a few days ago at a congressional hearing isn’t really surprising: “Yes, you’re right, President Trump was in office when the Covid virus came out of a laboratory in China, from the laboratory in Wuhan, was issued. And he tried to make it very clear that it came from China, and reporters have consistently rejected that.”

But even in the more moderate media, such statements can suddenly be heard. There was an “overwhelming fervor” to discredit the Wuhan lab virus theory after former US President Donald Trump made the claim, said Rita Panahi, a Sky News anchor.

Trump was right; the coronavirus came from the laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan; Democrats and many media outlets have unfairly discredited the ex-president – there’s a reason why this actually old story has been repeated by Republicans in the US for a few days. And it’s becoming a growing political problem for US President Joe Biden. Because he and his staff can’t find clear answers to the theory.

The laboratory hypothesis receives support

The scientific guesswork about the cause of Covid-19 is still not over. But according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the responsible US Department of Energy has determined that the coronavirus most likely escaped accidentally from a Chinese laboratory.

Shortly thereafter, FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed the view of U.S. domestic intelligence in an interview with Fox News: “The FBI has for some time assumed that the origin of the pandemic is most likely a possible laboratory incident in Wuhan,” Wray said. “You are talking about a possible leak in a laboratory controlled by the Chinese government.”

No consensus in the Biden administration

The problem for the Biden administration is that it has not yet been able to make its own clear assessment. To this day, the White House is rummaging in the fog. In several press statements, both National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby and State Department spokesman Ned Price reiterated the following:

“There is currently no consensus in the US government as to exactly how Covid started,” Kirby admitted. There is simply no consensus among the various secret services. “There are different views within the intelligence community,” Ned Price said. There are also services that have come to different conclusions than the laboratory thesis. “And there are those who say they just don’t have enough information to make a firm guess about the origins of Covid-19,” Price said.

To test the lab leak hypothesis, Joe Biden had already ordered a special investigation by the US secret services in 2021. They must collect more information and come to an assessment within 90 days. But the report that followed did not come to an unequivocal conclusion either. Some believe the virus first passed from animals to humans. Others believe humans were affected first, which would support the lab hypothesis.

Wrongly stated early on

The political problem for the Biden administration stems, on the one hand, from its own ignorance. To make a judgment you need the facts. On the other hand, the laboratory hypothesis cannot be simply brushed aside. Prominent representatives such as the former top US health official Anthony Fauci, but also the German virologist Christian Drosten had repeatedly presented the laboratory hypothesis as absurd.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, there were repeated physical attacks against people of Asian appearance, leading to a high level of sensitivity on the subject. The side effect: Just displaying the lab hypothesis and pursuing it was often accompanied by accusations of racism in both Germany and the US. Blanket China bashing by Donald Trump is that.

More thorny questions

In fact, the laboratory hypothesis in the US is closely related to a politically sensitive question: did the US contribute to virus research in China and possibly also to the development of the coronavirus? The focus is once again on Anthony Fauci, who was not only an adviser to the US president, but also director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which in turn is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). ). of the US government.

This agency had provided money to an organization that collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In 2014, this involved financing a program to investigate possible coronaviruses in bats. $600,000 went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In 2019, the project was extended for another five years, but was subsequently withdrawn by the Trump administration in April 2020 following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Republicans in particular have repeatedly tried to probe the origins of the pandemic in the House of Representatives to find out whether China was withholding facts about the initial outbreak and how much US taxpayer money helped fund the Wuhan lab. With their new majority, the Republicans are considering these issues in various committees, including the Intelligence Committee. A subcommittee is scheduled to begin hearings on the original question in early March.

More than seven million people worldwide have died from the new virus. The ambiguities about the origin of Corona have by no means been removed. The only thing the Biden administration is clear about is that China is still obstructing the clarification of the origin of the virus. Washington still seems to have nothing on its hands other than public appeals to the government there.