The White House on Friday unveiled a revamped Covid-19 web site that promoted the contentious concept that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory, framing it because the pandemic’s “true origins.”
The Covid.gov web site, beforehand centered on selling vaccine and testing data, now features a full-length picture of President Donald Trump and criticizes the pandemic insurance policies applied beneath former president Joe Biden.
The web site additionally targets Anthony Fauci, Biden’s former chief medical advisor, for advancing what it calls the “preferred narrative that Covid-19 originated naturally.”
It presents 5 bullet factors geared toward bolstering the lab leak concept, noting that Wuhan, the positioning of the primary identified coronavirus case, can also be house to China’s “foremost SARS research lab” and has a historical past of conducting analysis at “inadequate biosafety levels.”
“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” the web site stated.
The lab-leak concept, as soon as dismissed as a conspiracy concept, has just lately gained mainstream traction within the United States.
Even as the talk stays unresolved — scientifically and politically — US companies such because the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy have come out in assist of the idea, albeit with various ranges of confidence.
Earlier this 12 months, the Central Intelligence Agency shifted its official stance on the virus’s origin, saying that it was “more likely” leaked from a Chinese lab than transmission from animals.
The evaluation drew criticism from China, which stated it was “extremely unlikely” Covid-19 got here from a laboratory.
Beijing additionally urged the United States to “stop politicizing and instrumentalizing the issue of origin-tracing.”
The United States and China are at present locked in a serious commerce warfare, with Washington saying Thursday new port charges for Chinese-linked ships and elevated tariffs for Chinese items.
The revamped White House web site, which apparently seeks to redefine the political narrative about Covid-19, additionally criticized the masks and social distancing mandates launched initially of the pandemic in 2020. There can also be a map of Wuhan that’s animated to throb.
Under a bit titled “Covid-19 misinformation,” it additionally accused public well being officers beneath the earlier administration of demonizing “alternative treatments” and colluding with social media corporations to censor dissenting views in regards to the pandemic — a cost steadily echoed by US conservatives.
The Biden administration has beforehand rejected the cost that it was suppressing or censoring conservative views.
The web site revamp comes after layoffs started earlier this month at main US well being companies, because the Trump administration embarks on a sweeping and scientifically contested restructuring that may reduce 10,000 jobs.
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr — who has alarmed well being consultants along with his rhetoric downplaying the significance of vaccines — stated the layoffs had been a part of a serious reform of his division, aiming to refocus efforts on power illness prevention.
More than a million folks died of Covid-19 and associated diseases within the United States, and tens of millions extra had been misplaced world wide.
Source: www.anews.com.tr