A congressional report released on December 2 has reignited debate over the origins of COVID-19, concluding that the virus most likely emerged from a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China. The 520-page document, published by the Republican-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s COVID-19 panel, also accuses the US government of promoting “misinformation” by dismissing the lab leak theory as a “conspiracy” in the early days of the pandemic.
The report, which comes after a two-year investigation, asserts that a “lab-related incident” involving gain-of-function research is the most plausible explanation for the virus’s emergence. This claim challenges the long-standing assumption that the virus originated in nature and jumped to humans via an animal host at a wet market in Wuhan.
The report aligns with similar assessments made by FBI Director Christopher Wray, who stated earlier this year that the FBI believes a lab leak is the most likely cause of the pandemic. Among the key factors cited in the report are the following:
Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV): As China’s premier SARS research facility, the WIV conducted gain-of-function experiments on coronaviruses. However, these experiments were reportedly carried out under insufficient biosafety conditions.
Illness Among Lab Workers: Researchers at the WIV reportedly fell ill with COVID-like symptoms as early as the fall of 2019, months before the virus was identified at the wet market.
Proximity to the Epicenter: The WIV’s location in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, further bolsters the plausibility of a lab-related origin.
“Four years after the onset of the worst pandemic in 100 years, the weight of the evidence increasingly supports the lab leak hypothesis,” the report states.
The investigation also........