The White House has officially updated its COVID.gov website with a new page asserting it knows the origin of the outbreak.
The pandemic, which began five years ago, profoundly changed our lives in ways we will never forget.
It was a long, difficult period marked by separation from friends and family, and absence from some of life’s most important moments — mourning, births, and shared community experiences.
Millions of lives were lost over the years after the COVID-19 virus, first reported in China in 2019, quickly spread across the globe.
Naturally, the origin of the virus has been a major point of debate.
Was it engineered in a lab, designed as a bioweapon, accidentally leaked, or did it emerge naturally from animals and jump to humans, similar to bird flu or mad cow disease?
These questions fueled intense discourse throughout the pandemic. For much of that time, the U.S. government largely dismissed the idea of a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China. Instead, attention shifted to the nearby Huanan Seafood Market, where bats, insects, and other cultural foods were sold — drawing heavy criticism and anger from the public.
A new website makes bold claims about the origins of the pandemic (STR / Contributor / Getty)
However, a study by the University of Oxford found that bats were not being sold at the market before it was shut down at the start of the outbreak.
So, where does Donald Trump’s administration stand on it now?
Their new landing page, titled “Lab Leak: True Origins of COVID-19,” lays out a five-point argument supporting the theory that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak in Wuhan.
This theory is based on a report from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, released in December 2024.
Before the recent changes, the COVID.gov site focused on providing information about testing, vaccination, treatment, and resources for Long COVID.
Now, the site features a five-point list outlining what the White House claims is “evidence” for how the pandemic began.
The landing page states that COVID-19 came from the Wuhan lab (HECTOR RETAMAL / Contributor / Getty)
The page states:
“The virus exhibits a biological characteristic not found in nature.”
“Data indicates that all COVID-19 cases trace back to a single introduction into humans, unlike previous pandemics, which involved multiple spillover events.”
“Wuhan is home to China’s leading SARS research laboratory, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research—altering genes and enhancing organisms—under inadequate biosafety conditions.”
“Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) reportedly fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before the virus was identified at the wet market.”
“By nearly every scientific measure, if there were evidence of a natural origin, it would have already emerged. But it hasn’t,” the page states.
It also alleges that government officials, including former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, edited a 2020 research paper on COVID-19’s origins that supported the idea of a natural emergence.
However, both the authors of that paper and Fauci have rejected these claims.
In 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report indicating that the intelligence community largely believed the virus originated through natural spillover.
Yet, a 2023 declassified report revealed a split within the intelligence community, though U.S. agencies agreed that COVID-19 was not developed as a biological weapon.
