A new report from the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis asserts that the COVID-19 pandemic likely stemmed from a laboratory accident, Al Jazeera reports.
The 520-page document, released Monday after a two-year investigation, concludes that the virus’s emergence was “likely because of a laboratory or research-related accident.”
The report scrutinized the federal and state responses to the pandemic, its origins, and vaccination efforts. A key finding centers on the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding of “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China prior to the outbreak. This research, which enhances viruses to better understand them, has been a point of contention.
The first COVID-19 cases were identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. While the zoonotic theory – the virus jumping from animals to humans – remains prevalent among many researchers, the House committee’s findings align with previous assessments by the US Department of Energy (with “low confidence”) and the FBI (with “moderate confidence”), both suggesting a lab leak as the most probable origin.
The subcommittee’s conclusion comes after 25 meetings, over 30 transcribed interviews, and the review of more than a million pages of documents. The investigation included two days of interviews with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The report’s criticisms of Dr. Fauci echo Republican accusations that he bears responsibility for the pandemic and suppressed the lab leak theory.
Beyond the origin question, the report also critiques several pandemic response measures. It claims lockdowns “did more harm than good,” and mask mandates were “ineffective,” contradicting established scientific consensus. However, the committee praised travel restrictions as life-saving and lauded Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine development program, as a “tremendous success.” The long-term effects of school closures on US children were also highlighted as a significant concern.
