Trump White House launches web page on COVID-19 lab leak

The Trump White House is leaning heavily into the lab-leak theory on the origins of COVID-19 with a web page that outlines evidence of a spillover from a virology center in Wuhan, China, instead of nature.

The web page, which features splashy graphics and maps and went viral on social media, also faults Dr. Anthony Fauci and Democrats who downplayed the idea that a lab leak was responsible.

“A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely origin of COVID-19,” the White House page says. “Current government mechanisms for overseeing this dangerous gain-of-function research are incomplete, severely convoluted, and lack global applicability.”

The webpage signals President Trump wants to be more assertive about the lab leak theory than the Biden administration, which ordered intelligence probes into COVID-19’s origins.

Some U.S. intelligence agencies concluded the coronavirus that killed millions of people and shut down much of the global economy leaked from the lab, though other agencies weren’t so certain.

For years, Mr. Trump and Republican allies have pointed to the likelihood of a lab leak from Wuhan, where the virus was discovered in late 2019. They pointed to risky virus research and U.S. involvement through grant funding under the National Institutes of Health.

The lab-leak theory was dismissed as a conspiracy theory early on, though it gained credence over time.

The new White House page faults Dr. Fauci, in particular, for promoting a paper in 2020 titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” that said the virus occurred naturally. 

Conservatives say the doctor was trying in part to shield an NIH grantee, EcoHealth Alliance, that worked in Wuhan. The Biden administration in January banned EcoHealth from receiving federal research funding for five years, though EcoHealth has denied its money contributed to the COVID-19 crisis.

“The bat coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology could not have started the pandemic,” the firm said in a lengthy statement on its web page.

Likewise, Dr. Fauci defended his record on COVID-19 before retiring at the end of 2022. He said his team had to deal with an evolving situation that wasn’t “static” and that opponents spread bogus information online.

“You always underscore the dynamic nature of what you’re dealing with,” he said in November 2022.

The new White House page also faults policies such as social distancing, in which people were told to stand 6 feet from each other during the pandemic, and mask mandates, saying there is no evidence they were effective or rooted in science.

It also targets former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running for New York mayor.

Mr. Cuomo faced widespread denunciation over a directive that said nursing homes should accept residents who had or were suspected of having COVID-19, so long as they were medically stable. The region was clamoring for hospital space at the time.

Mr. Cuomo says his state and others followed federal guidance, and New York ultimately had a lower rate of deaths per population than many states.

Much of the world has moved on from the pandemic, though some of the economic and social scars remain, and fights over vaccines and mandates are still political talking points. 

A top House Republican praised the White House for retracing the suspicious origins of COVID-19 and policy responses.