President Trump Endorses Covid ‘Lab Leak’ Theory on Government Websites About the Virus

The Trump administration further embraced the theory that the deadly Covid-19 pandemic emanated from a lab in China, updating the government’s main websites about the virus to detail that argument. The White House revamped the primary websites for information about Covid and for ordering virus tests, Covid.gov and Covidtests.gov, to lay out its contention that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Under a banner titled “Lab Leak” that features an image of President Trump, the new page says that prior statements by government officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, that the virus emerged from a wild-animal market in China are false. The page says that Wuhan is home to China’s foremost research lab on the SARS virus and has “inadequate biosafety levels.” Researchers there had Covid-like symptoms before the virus was discovered at a wet market, it says. The webpage does not address other details about the early spread of the virus, like where patients lived and worked and genetic clues from an illegal wild-animal market in Wuhan where many cases were detected. Many scientists believe that information points to the virus having spilled from animals into people at the market.