While there’s no “smoking gun,” experts called by Congressional Republicans at the first national-level hearing into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic say the United States should continue investigating whether a Chinese lab accidentally released the COVID-19 infection.
Most international health experts have downplayed that possibility, instead preferring to focus on learning from the global response itself to the pandemic that has killed an estimated 7 million people. But a new subcommittee formed after Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January is examining theories widely dismissed by the scientific community as racist conspiracies.
Where did COVID come from?
Determining the origins is politically sensitive because the investigations could further heighten existing U.S.-China tensions. Public health experts say international cooperation is key in fighting pandemics, and that assigning blame could reduce future cooperation.
None of the witnesses called by the Republican-controlled House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic provided new evidence proving their contention that the virus came from a lab, but instead cited events, grant proposals and other incidents as too coincidental to ignore.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees some high-security labs of its own, concluded with low confidence the virus came from a Wuhan lab leak. FBI Director Christopher Wray echoed that, saying a lab leak was “most likely” the source.
“This is not necessarily a smoking gun but the growing body of circumstantial evidence suggests a gun that is, at very least, warm to the touch,” testified Jamie F. Metzl, an international relations expert, commentator and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
House Republicans investigate COVID origins
Metzl joined virologist Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and former New York Times…
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