The White House has rolled out a redesigned Covid-19 website that places the controversial lab-leak theory front and center, suggesting that the coronavirus pandemic originated from a Chinese laboratory rather than from natural transmission.
The revamped site, Covid.gov, now prominently features a full-length image of President Donald Trump and sharply criticizes the previous administration’s pandemic response, including vaccine mandates, mask requirements, and public health messaging.
The updated page claims that “nearly all measures of science” support a lab-related origin, stating: “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.”
The site outlines several points to support the theory, emphasizing the proximity of the original Covid-19 outbreak to the Wuhan Institute of Virology — described on the site as China’s “foremost SARS research lab” with a record of conducting research under “inadequate biosafety levels.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as chief medical advisor under President Joe Biden, is also singled out on the site for promoting what it calls the “preferred narrative” that the virus emerged naturally. The platform further accuses public health officials of suppressing alternative viewpoints and collaborating with tech platforms to censor dissent — a claim often repeated by conservative groups.
In response to the site’s launch, Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told NPR, “I welcome all efforts to dig deeper. But it would be a terrible shame if such efforts distracted from essential work to help prevent further infections and treat people suffering from Covid-19 and long Covid.”
The website relaunch follows recent assessments by U.S. agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Energy, and the CIA, which now consider the lab-leak origin “more likely,” although levels of confidence vary and the scientific consensus remains unsettled.
China has pushed back against the allegations, calling them “extremely unlikely” and urging the U.S. to “stop politicizing and instrumentalizing the issue of origin-tracing.”
The update comes amid new U.S. trade restrictions on China and coincides with widespread layoffs in the country’s health agencies. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for his controversial vaccine views, said the restructuring is intended to shift focus toward chronic disease prevention.
To date, Covid-19 has claimed over one million lives in the U.S. alone, with millions more affected globally.
