Another Congressional report concludes Covid leaked from a lab

The COVID pandemic was likely caused by a ‘lab leak’ from a Chinese institution, another Congressional report has concluded. The 302-page Senate report, obtained by Axios, highlights a series of previous failures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the fact that there are no known naturally-occurring incidents of COVID-19. ‘The preponderance of information affirms the plausibility of a research-related incident that was likely unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research,’ the report states. Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11984053/ANOTHER-Congressional-report-says-COVID-leaked-lab.html?ito=msngallery

The authors said that the evidence is ‘circumstantial,’ and they have been hampered by lack of cooperation from China. Yet they remain confident that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab. Joe Biden has ordered that all documentation from the U.S. government about the virus be made public. Chinese researchers began development of at least two COVID vaccines in November 2019 – a month before the first cases, in China, were reported. The first U.S. case was confirmed on January 20, 2020. The vaccine ‘means SARS-CoV-2 would have been present at the WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) before the known outbreak of the pandemic,’ the authors write. They note, however, that there is no actual evidence of COVID-19 being present inside the Wuhan Institute. They conclude that the pandemic most likely began with a lab leak, but it is highly probable we will never know for sure. China has insisted that the virus passed naturally from animals to humans, and have denied reports of a lab leak. Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11984053/ANOTHER-Congressional-report-says-COVID-leaked-lab.html?ito=msngallery

Entitled ‘Muddy Waters: The origin of COVID-19,’ the report was championed by Senator Richard Burr (pictured), a Republican representing North Carolina. He stepped down in January. Burr, a Republican who served as the minority leader of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, worked on the report until he left Congress. A summary was released in January: on Monday, Axios obtained the full version. Burr’s report was authored by Robert Kadlec, a former HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response during the Trump administration. A former senior aide to Burr, who provided the report to Axios, said the report was somewhat abandoned when Burr left office, but was still a useful contribution to the debate. ‘Since the team did not complete their work before Senator Burr left office this became a product without a home,’ the former aide said. Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11984053/ANOTHER-Congressional-report-says-COVID-leaked-lab.html?ito=msngallery

Kadlec added: ‘Former Senator Burr has not reviewed this document and it didn’t go through the same vetting process our executive summary document released last year did, but this is worth releasing, in my view, and reflects the quality of work that was done by the team.’ Kadlec, a physician and retired Air Force colonel, said he believed China was motivated to explore the COVID-19 virus after their country was battered by SARS from 2002-4. SARS killed 8,000 people worldwide – more than 5,000 of them in China. ‘I think there is a really reasonable logic to what the Chinese might be doing with regard to SARS coronavirus vaccines because they saw the impact SARS had on their country,’ said Kadlec. He told Axios: ‘They had more than enough reason — as we did post 9/11 — to try to do things to protect ourselves.’ The Burr-Kadlec report is just the latest Congressional paper to conclude that the lab leak theory was probable. Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11984053/ANOTHER-Congressional-report-says-COVID-leaked-lab.html?ito=msngallery

In September 2020, Michael McCaul, a Republican serving as minority leader of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, did not blame the Wuhan lab – but did blame the Chinese authorities for covering up the outbreak. ‘It is beyond doubt that the CCP actively engaged in a cover-up designed to obfuscate data, hide relevant public health information, and suppress doctors and journalists who attempted to warn the world,’ McCaul’s report states. ‘By responding in a transparent and responsible manner, the CCP could have supported the global public health response and shared information with the world about how to handle the virus. ‘It is likely the ongoing pandemic could have been prevented had they done so, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and the world from an economic meltdown.’ Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11984053/ANOTHER-Congressional-report-says-COVID-leaked-lab.html?ito=msngallery

Democrats appeared less interested in the origins of the pandemic, and more focused on the errors of the Trump administration. In December 2022, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released their final report, which argues that structural weaknesses, leadership failings and the spread of misinformation contributed to the deaths of more than a million Americans during the pandemic. When Republicans took control of the House, the focus shifted back to the origins of the pandemic. In January, the U.S. Energy Department concluded with ‘low confidence’ that the pandemic ‘likely’ originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, according to a classified report shared with those sitting on the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Pictured: Donald Trump is seen with Robert Kadlec (left), CDC director Robert Redfield (second right) and Mike Pence on February 26, 2020. Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11984053/ANOTHER-Congressional-report-says-COVID-leaked-lab.html?ito=msngallery

A month later, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said that the FBI believes COVID probably originated from a ‘potential lab incident’ in Wuhan. But, he added, the Chinese government has blocked the work of FBI investigators. Robert Redfield, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in March told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic – now Republican controlled – that he believed the virus likely originated in the Chinese lab. ‘Based on my initial analysis of the data, I came to believe and I still believe today that it indicates that COVID-19 more likely was a result of an accidental lab leak than the result of a natural spillover event,’ Redfield told the committee. ‘This conclusion is based primarily on the biology of the virus itself.’ Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11984053/ANOTHER-Congressional-report-says-COVID-leaked-lab.html?ito=msngallery

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