White House Redirects COVID.gov to Promote Lab Leak Theory as “True Origin” of Pandemic

In a striking pivot, the White House has repurposed the once resource-focused Covid.gov website into a platform supporting the theory that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China. The newly launched page—titled “Lab Leak: True Origins of COVID-19”—lays out five key points arguing for the lab-based origin of the virus, echoing findings from a December 2024 report by the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The rebranded website represents a significant departure from its prior function. Until last week, Covid.gov was a centralised hub for testing, treatment, vaccination resources, and information on Long COVID. Now, the site leads with a politically charged narrative that asserts a lab leak—not a natural spillover event—is the most likely source of the global pandemic that began in 2019.

White House’s Five-Point Argument

The webpage outlines five core assertions to support the lab leak theory:

COVID-19 exhibits a “biological characteristic not found in nature.”

Evidence suggests all human cases stemmed from “a single introduction.”

Wuhan is home to China’s top SARS research facility.

Lab researchers exhibited symptoms similar to those of COVID-19 in late 2019.

If the virus had a natural origin, “it would have already surfaced.”

The White House, with the Covid.gov website, also spotlights a controversial research paper published in 2020, claiming that it was edited and promoted by senior officials, including former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, to discredit the lab leak theory. The page suggests that the paper was part of an orchestrated effort to frame the origins of the pandemic as zoonotic.

Fauci Responds to Renewed Accusations

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as a chief medical advisor to Presidents Trump and Biden, has repeatedly denied allegations that he influenced scientific consensus or manipulated research. In June 2024, during a heated House subcommittee hearing, Anthony Fauci described the bribery claims against him as “absolutely false and simply preposterous.”

“I had no input into the content of the published paper. The truth is exactly the opposite. I did not cover up the possibility of a lab origin—I actively encouraged open investigation.”

More Than a Theory—Now a Policy Shift

The new Covid.gov website doesn’t stop at origins. It also criticizes pandemic response strategies, including mask mandates, social distancing, and lockdowns—questioning their effectiveness and pointing to perceived missteps by state-level officials, particularly in New York. Additionally, it highlights President Joe Biden’s controversial pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci, framing it as an implicit admission of wrongdoing, despite the lack of legal charges or formal investigations against him.

While the intelligence community remains divided, previous declassified reports in 2021 and 2023 concluded that COVID-19 was not engineered as a bioweapon and that Chinese leadership likely lacked early awareness of the outbreak. Still, limited access to data and the absence of a clear “smoking gun” have kept the debate alive.

With this latest move, the Biden-Trump administration appears to be drawing a firm line, recasting COVID-19’s origin not just as a scientific question but as a matter of political clarity. Whether the public and the international community follow that narrative remains to be seen. But the newly launched page, titled “Lab Leak: True Origins of COVID-19” with Donald Trump, is another round of deflection and keeping Donald Trump’s base busy.