COVID.Gov: The Big Changes To The Government Website About Coronaviruses
There have been big changes to the government website that used to have information about the coronavirus outbreak and free test kits. The page on the White House website now says “lab leak: where COVID-19 really came from.” Not long ago, the CIA said that the pandemic probably started in a lab, but they didn’t give their results much weight.
It also said that natural and lab-based beginnings are still possible. The new government website says that the lab origin idea is even more likely and that health and intelligence officials are trying to hide it for political reasons. So now we have Dr. Celine Gounder, a medical writer, here to talk about these results.
There is a report from the White House and Congress in 2024 that says COVID-19 most likely came from a lab leak in China. However, many experts still think it came from nature. Help us understand all of that. To sum up, there’s really no smoking gun for either idea. Scientists are still mostly sure that the coronaviruses got there naturally, most likely at that wet market in Wuhan, China, where live animals known to carry the virus were being sold.
When the virus was first found at that market, genetic material from sick animals, like raccoon dogs, was found in the same places. Also, there’s no proof that the virus came from a lab. Reports from the U.S. intelligence community say that the Wuhan lab did not have SARS-CoV-2 or a close relative of it before the pandemic began. Okay, so the government says the virus has a genetic trait that doesn’t exist in nature. Is that really true?
This claim is not accurate because it pertains to a part of the virus known as the furin cleavage site, which lets the virus enter human cells. This doesn’t show that viruses are man-made, though. It’s something that can happen on its own. Okay, so the Trump administration changed government websites to focus on the lab leak idea with simpler language.
Does that worry you? That’s a worry, because talking about public health should be based on facts, science, and even questions, not politics. And giving people one unproven story instead of complex factual information is very dishonest. And it does make people less likely to believe government advice.
People need to be able to trust the information they are told in case of another pandemic or other crisis. And this really breaks down that trust. There was talk that Dr. Fauci and other health officials tried to hide the lab leak idea as part of a plot. So, does that make sense? Also, I believe it’s very important to point out that Dr. Christian Anderson and Dr. Bob Gehry, who wrote the original Origins paper, testified under oath in Congress in 2024.
Under oath, Dr. Christian Anderson said that Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins were told in advance what the study was going to say. That’s not the same thing as saying they were in charge of the editing. Dr. Anderson denied under oath that they were in charge of editing this work. They were just kept in the loop, which is what you would expect in this kind of emergency.
CIA Said That The pandemic probably started in a lab
Also, the Democratic members of the subcommittee that held the hearings where Drs. Christian Anderson and Bob Gehrig testified looked over a lot of paperwork, like emails and congressional testimony, and they didn’t find any proof that Dr. Fauci or Dr. Collins tried to hide the results by editing the paper.
They were just told what was going on. So why is it still important to find out where COVID came from? It’s important because it affects how we can stop pandemics in the future. So if there were biosecurity problems at the lab, you would want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I believe we should do that whether that was the cause of the outbreak or not.
But zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that are spread from animals to humans, have been the cause of almost every known new infectious disease outbreak in history. The website that used to have information on COVID and test kits has been changed by the Trump government. Look at this now.
There is a picture of the president with the words “lab leak, the true origins of COVID-19” written on it.Let’s remind people of how this thing has changed, what it looks like now, and what it stresses and what it has mostly erased. Yes. That’s why you’re right, Major. If you type COVID.gov or COVIDtest.gov into your web browser, you will be taken to that site, which is called The Lab Leak, The Real Origin of COVID-19 and is housed by that site.
Those websites used to have a lot of useful details on where to find COVID tests, COVID treatments, and COVID shots. It’s also interesting that the website’s content isn’t really new—it says that all of that information comes from a study that House Republicans put out last year. In other words, that website doesn’t have anything new except for some new pictures and a new look. The links to COVID.gov now go to different places.
Those details are important because the CDC and FDA still have websites that tell people to “please go here to find out more information about how to get COVID-19 treatment.” These people are now being sent to this White House page. A representative for HHS told us that they are currently trying to catch up and make changes to all of those websites.
Lab Leak, The True Origins Of COVID-19
However, it’s clear that this went live before any of those changes could be made. For the record, neither you nor I are here to decide if the lab leak idea is a conspiracy theory or not. People argue about it, and they have been arguing about it for years. More evidence has been looked at that shows it might have come from a lab in Wuhan, China.
That’s not the most… strange thing about this. Aside from Operation Warp Speed, which made the vaccine, I find it interesting that these things are no longer there or aren’t even mentioned. That’s right, yes. And, you know, this is happening at the same time that the Trump administration is trying to change the subject and, quote, “move past the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
All of these websites are being taken down at the same time, according to one report. At the same time, they have also told all government agencies to take down any COVID-related signs in their buildings. We talked to someone who works at a federally funded health care clinic. They found out about the direction when their nursing staff started taking down any signs that said “COVID-19” to follow it.
Another interesting piece of news about measles. What is it? That’s right, yes. A lot of people were let go from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as everyone knows. Another important part of those cuts was to NIOSH, which is part of the CDC. They are in charge of worker safety, which is very important, and they also handle a subject that no one else in the CDC handles.
As a result of the changes, those responders lost their jobs. They are no longer working on the reaction and plan they had to help schools in Texas stop the virus from spreading. All the people who were meant to work on that project have been fired, so that project has also been canceled. Alex, there’s also new news about changes the FDA might make to protect health and food safety.
That’s right. It’s interesting that we’re writing about this because the FDA has had some officials planning for a long time for the chance that routine food safety inspections would be moved from the FDA to the states. Lots of Republicans have suggested that the inspections be done by outside groups in this way in order to save money and give power back to the states.
Some advocacy groups are against this kind of move, because they think that having a bunch of different states do food safety inspections instead of the federal government hurts trust in the U.S. food supply, since many people don’t buy food made in the states they pay taxes for. To be clear, this plan is not yet final, but we are reporting that planning has begun again around it because the Trump government told us to.
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