The COVID pandemic was likely caused by a “laboratory leak” from a Chinese institution, another congressional report concludes.
The 302-page Senate Report, obtained by Axioshighlights 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 confirms the plausibility of a study-related incident that was likely unintentional and resulted from the failure of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research,” the report states.
The authors said the evidence is “circumstantial” and they were hampered by a lack of cooperation from China. Yet they remain convinced that the virus escaped from the laboratory in Wuhan.
Joe Biden has ordered all US government documentation on the virus to be made public.
In February 2020, a doctor is at work in Wuhan
Many analysts now believe that COVID-19 originated in this lab, in Wuhan, China
Richard Burr, who resigned as senator in January, oversaw the report when he was minority leader of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Chinese researchers began developing at least two COVID vaccines in November 2019 — a month before the first cases were reported in China. The first US case was confirmed on January 20, 2020.
The vaccine “means that SARS-CoV-2 would have been present in WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) before the known outbreak of the pandemic,” the authors write.
However, they note that there is no real evidence that COVID-19 is present at the Wuhan Institute.
They conclude that the pandemic most likely started with a laboratory leak, but it is highly likely that we will never know for sure.
China has maintained that the virus passed naturally from animals to humans and has denied reports of a lab leak.
The report, titled “Muddy Waters: The Origin of COVID-19,” was defended by Senator Richard Burr, a Republican representing North Carolina.
He resigned in January.
Burr, a Republican who served as minority leader of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, worked on the report until he left Congress.
A summary was published in January: Axios received the full version on Monday.
A summary of the report (above) was released in January: the full version was published Monday
Burr’s report was written 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 it was still a useful contribution to the debate.
“Since the team didn’t complete their work before Senator Burr left office, this became a homeless product,” the former aide said.
“Former Senator Burr has not reviewed this document and it has not gone through the same vetting process as our summary document released last year, but this is, in my opinion, worthy of release and reflects the quality of work done by the team.’
Kadlec, a doctor and retired Air Force colonel, said he believed China was motivated to investigate the COVID-19 virus after their country was ravaged by SARS from 2002-4. SARS killed 8,000 people worldwide – more than 5,000 of them in China.
“I think there’s a very reasonable logic to what the Chinese could do with regard to SARS coronavirus vaccines, because they saw the impact SARS had on their country,” Kadlec said.
He told Axios, “They had plenty of reason – like we did after 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 likely.
Donald Trump is seen with Robert Kadlec (left), CDC Director Robert Redfield (second right), and Mike Pence on February 26, 2020
In September 2020, Michael McCaul, a Republican who served as minority leader of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, blamed not the Wuhan lab but the Chinese authorities for covering up the outbreak.
“There is no doubt that the CCP was actively involved in a cover-up to obscure data, hide relevant public health information, and suppress doctors and journalists who tried 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 on how to deal with the virus.
“It is likely that the ongoing pandemic could have been prevented had they done so, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and the world from economic collapse.”
Democrats seemed less interested in the origins of the pandemic and more focused on the Trump administration’s mistakes.
In December 2022, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released their final report stating that structural weaknesses, leadership failures and the spread of misinformation contributed to the deaths of more than a million Americans during the pandemic.
As Republicans took control of the House, the focus shifted back to the origins of the pandemic.
In January, the US energy department concluded with “low confidence” that the pandemic “probably” originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, according to a classified report shared with those serving on House and Senate intelligence committees.
A month later, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said the FBI believes COVID likely 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), told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic — now overseen by the Republicans — in March that he believed the virus likely came from the Chinese lab .
“Based on my initial analysis of the data, I came to believe and still believe it indicates that COVID-19 was more likely the result of an accidental lab leak than the result of a natural spillover event,” Redfield told the committee. .
‘This conclusion is mainly based on the biology of the virus itself.’