COVID ORIGINSSenate Panel Minority Staff Report Argues for Lab-Leak Theory of COVID Origins
The Republican minority staff of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee earlier this week issued a 35-page report contending that “SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting COVID-19 global pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident associated with coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.” The report has failed to win over prominent supporters of the lab leak theory, including Rutgers University’s Dr. Richard Ebright, who said that “there was no information in the report that has not been publicly presented in the media and discussed in the media previously.”
This week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Minority oversight staff released their interim report — An Analysis of the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The report makes a number of claims, including “While it remains possible that SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a result of a natural zoonotic spillover, facts and evidence found in previous documented zoonotic spillover events have not, to date, been identified in relation to this pandemic,” “Substantial evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of a research-related incident associated with a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” and “This investigation’s interim report concludes that SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting COVID-19 global pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident associated with coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.”
The 35-page report does not completely rule out a market origin and, importantly, it does not claim that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered as a bioweapon-a popular conspiracy theory. One interesting element it does focus on is that Chinese scientists began testing their COVID-19 vaccines in humans about a month before the United States did. The report implies this means the Chinese had some sort of advanced (pre-January 11, 2020) access to genomic sequencing, though it does still ask “What additional steps, processes, or novel techniques did AMMS [PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences] researchers take that advanced the development of their vaccine faster than the Operation Warp Speed timeline?” The report states, “While mRNA vaccine candidates were able to design their vaccine construct in two days, because mRNA vaccines only need the coronavirus’ genetic sequence to make a vaccine and no virus has to be cultivated in labs, traditional vaccine platforms take longer.” It continues, highlighting that the first Operation Warp Speed (OWS) vaccine candidates to enter human clinical trials were non-mRNA vaccines-AstraZeneca-Oxford’s offering and Johnson & Johnson’s, both viral vector vaccines.
