Republicans on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee say there is “significant circumstantial evidence” that the outbreak of the Chinese Communist virus was caused by a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research. A White House press secretary responded Thursday (May 20) that there is not enough information to make an assessment, and that the U.S. government’s position remains that an independent and transparent investigation into the origin of the virus is needed.
Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, and the committee’s Republicans said in a report Wednesday that there is “significant circumstantial evidence” that the 2019 coronavirus disease outbreak was caused by a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research.
At a White House press conference Thursday, a Fox News reporter asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki, “Has the White House seen any circumstantial evidence that the virus did not originate in a laboratory?”
Psaki replied, “First of all, I would caution you against falsification, which is never a responsible approach in our view when it comes to finding the source of a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.”
On the origin of the CCP virus, she said, “At this point we don’t have enough information to make an assessment.”
Sharkey reiterated the need for an independent investigation into the traceability of the virus.
“I would say that our view remains that there needs to be an independent, transparent investigation, and that the investigation needs to be conducted with the cooperation and data from the Chinese government,” she said.
Sharkey also said the Biden administration has expressed both publicly and privately that the Chinese Communist government has been “opaque from the beginning.”
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee said in their report that international efforts to find the true source of the virus have been hampered by a lack of cooperation from the People’s Republic of China. “However, significant circumstantial evidence raises serious concerns that the 2019 coronavirus disease may have been caused by a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research.”
The Republicans cited the CCP’s “history of laboratory leaks leading to infections”; U.S. diplomats in the CCP warned back in 2017 that the Wuhan lab was conducting “dangerous” coronavirus research without following “necessary safety protocols,” and that there were “unintended consequences. research” without following “necessary safety protocols” and that there was a “risk of an accidental pandemic outbreak.
They also point to public reports that in the fall of 2019, “several researchers at the Wuhan lab developed symptoms similar to those of the 2019 coronavirus disease” and the Communist Party’s military’s “involvement in the Wuhan lab.
At the same time, the report said, “By contrast, there is little evidence to support the CCP’s claim that 2019 coronavirus disease is a natural phenomenon, transmitted from other species to humans.” They said the CCP authorities “have failed to identify the original species that allegedly transmitted the virus to humans, which is critical to their theory of the transmission of zoonotic diseases.”
The Republicans said it is “critical that health experts and the U.S. government understand the origin of the new coronavirus” in order to prevent “or quickly mitigate future pandemics.
“To protect U.S. citizens from future pandemics, the U.S. government must exert greater pressure on China to allow a full, reliable investigation into the origins of the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic and allow for an investigation into the possibility that the virus originated from a laboratory leak,” the report said. “The U.S. government must also provide a full account of any U.S. collaboration with the Wuhan laboratory for coronavirus research, including support for these projects through U.S. government funding.”
The release of the report follows a letter from Rep. Nunes and other Republicans on the committee to President Biden and to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, accusing the U.S. intelligence agency of failing to provide timely updates on its investigation into the origins of the new coronavirus, among other things.
Haines recently testified before Congress that the U.S. intelligence agencies have not determined the origin of the new crown virus, but did not rule out the possibility that the new crown virus was leaked from the Wuhan laboratory.
The report by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee comes on the heels of continued calls by scientists for a more in-depth investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus, including the possibility that a laboratory accident released the new coronavirus that caused the pandemic.
On April 22, two Republican U.S. federal senators introduced the Covid-19 Origins Act of 2021, which would require the Biden administration to declassify information involving a potential link between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virus Research and the origin of the new coronavirus pandemic.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said all hypotheses about the origin of the virus were taken into account after a report was released by a panel of WHO experts investigating the origin of the new coronavirus. He said that although this panel made the conclusion that laboratory leakage was the least likely hypothesis, it required further investigation.
This report is a very important start, but it is not the end,” he said at the time. We have not yet found the source of the virus and we must continue to follow the science and will spare no effort to do so.”
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