The White House has changed the COVID.gov website to a new page titled "Lab Leak: True Origins of COVID-19," which strongly supports the idea that the Covid-19 pandemic started from a lab accident in Wuhan, China.

This new page mainly uses information from the final report of the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, released in December 2024. However, there is still no solid proof or agreement among experts about how the pandemic actually began. Up until last week, COVID.gov was a resource hub for Covid-19 testing, treatments, vaccines, and information about long Covid. Now, the updated site focuses on five main points that back the lab leak theory.

The White House presents five main points: First, the virus has a unique biological trait that doesn't naturally occur. Second, available data indicates that all Covid-19 cases likely came from a single event where the virus first spread to humans. Third, Wuhan is home to China's leading lab for SARS research. Fourth, some researchers at this lab were reportedly ill with symptoms similar to Covid-19 in the fall of 2019. Finally, the White House argues that if Covid-19 had a natural origin, clear evidence supporting that would have already been found.

There are claims that some government officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), were involved in editing and promoting a 2020 research paper that supported the idea that Covid-19 came from natural sources, not a lab. The page suggests that the purpose of the paper was to reject the lab leak theory. However, these claims are not new—Dr. Fauci and the authors of the paper have repeatedly denied that the research was influenced or had any secret motive.

The origin of Covid-19 has sparked intense debate since the pandemic began, mainly focusing on two theories: a natural transmission from animals to humans or an accidental leak from a laboratory. But due to the lack of clear evidence and limited access to key data, the issue remains unresolved. In 2021, a declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that while most intelligence agencies slightly favoured the natural origin theory, there was no consensus. A 2023 follow-up report showed the same divide. However, US agencies largely agreed that the virus was not designed as a biological weapon and that Chinese authorities probably didn’t know about the outbreak in advance.

The new COVID.gov page includes a large photo of Dr. Fauci and mentions that former U.S. President Joe Biden granted him a pardon that covered "any offenses." The page also criticises federal agencies like the NIH and HHS, accusing them of breaking transparency laws and not fully cooperating with Congressional investigations. However, it notes that these agencies did respond to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests and gave testimony when asked.

The page also raises doubts about how effective pandemic measures such as social distancing, wearing masks, and lockdowns really were, and it criticises how New York officials handled the COVID-19 response.

In 2024, Dr. Fauci appeared before Congress to address these accusations. He strongly denied the claims, calling them completely untrue and ridiculous, and said he never hid any information or wrongly influenced research. "The accusation being circulated that I influenced the scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false, and simply preposterous. I had no input into the content of the published paper," Fauci said during a June 2024 hearing. He added, "The second issue is a false accusation that I tried to cover up the possibility that the virus originated from a lab. In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite."

This isn’t the first time the White House has openly discussed where Covid-19 might have come from. Back in January, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke at the World Economic Forum and said that the pandemic had hurt his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. "But, I like President Xi very much. I've always liked him. We always had a very good relationship. It was very strained with Covid coming out of Wuhan. Obviously, that strained it. I'm sure it strained it with a lot of people, but that strained our relationship," Trump had said.