Trump-Branded 'Lab Leak' Page Replaces US Covid Information Sites (npr.org) 80
"There has never been a consensus or a 'smoking gun' to explain what started the pandemic," writes ABC News.
Yet the Associated Press reports that "A federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and treatment for COVID-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak." (This despite the fact that "about 325 Americans have died from COVID per week on average over the past four weeks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.") The covid.gov website shows a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words "lab" and "leak" under a White House heading... The web page also accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of pushing a "preferred narrative" that COVID-19 originated in nature. The origins of COVID have never been proven. Scientists are unsure whether the virus jumped from an animal, as many other viruses have, or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis released in 2023 said there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory.
"Many scientists think it's more likely the virus originated naturally in a wild animal and then spilled over into people in a wildlife market located in Wuhan," reports NPR.
And even Jamie Metzl, a critic of the wildlife spillover theory, told NPR that while they appreciated "efforts to dig deeper... 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 federal website covidtests.gov now also redirects instead to the new page...) Some scientists were critical of the new site, which they say appears political in intent. "Every one of the five pieces of evidence supporting the lab leak hypothesis ... is factually incorrect, embellished, or presented in a misleading way," [wrote Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada]. "But making evidence-based arguments in good faith about the pandemic's origin is not the purpose of this document. This is pure propaganda, intended to justify the systematic devastation of the federal government, particularly programs devoted to public health and biomedical research," Rasmussen added.
Other scientists said the web site doesn't follow the existing body of scientific evidence on the issue. That evidence does not support "any of the many, often contradictory, lab leak scenarios that have been proposed," Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, in an email to NPR. He argued that the evidence is consistent with "the less flashy hypothesis that bringing live animals infected with pathogens with pandemic potential into the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world was how this pandemic started.... the next pathogen with pandemic potential will find us easy pickings if we don't appreciate how risky this sort of 'biosafety level zero' activity is."
Yet the Associated Press reports that "A federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and treatment for COVID-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak." (This despite the fact that "about 325 Americans have died from COVID per week on average over the past four weeks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.") The covid.gov website shows a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words "lab" and "leak" under a White House heading... The web page also accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of pushing a "preferred narrative" that COVID-19 originated in nature. The origins of COVID have never been proven. Scientists are unsure whether the virus jumped from an animal, as many other viruses have, or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis released in 2023 said there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory.
"Many scientists think it's more likely the virus originated naturally in a wild animal and then spilled over into people in a wildlife market located in Wuhan," reports NPR.
And even Jamie Metzl, a critic of the wildlife spillover theory, told NPR that while they appreciated "efforts to dig deeper... 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 federal website covidtests.gov now also redirects instead to the new page...) Some scientists were critical of the new site, which they say appears political in intent. "Every one of the five pieces of evidence supporting the lab leak hypothesis ... is factually incorrect, embellished, or presented in a misleading way," [wrote Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada]. "But making evidence-based arguments in good faith about the pandemic's origin is not the purpose of this document. This is pure propaganda, intended to justify the systematic devastation of the federal government, particularly programs devoted to public health and biomedical research," Rasmussen added.
Other scientists said the web site doesn't follow the existing body of scientific evidence on the issue. That evidence does not support "any of the many, often contradictory, lab leak scenarios that have been proposed," Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, in an email to NPR. He argued that the evidence is consistent with "the less flashy hypothesis that bringing live animals infected with pathogens with pandemic potential into the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world was how this pandemic started.... the next pathogen with pandemic potential will find us easy pickings if we don't appreciate how risky this sort of 'biosafety level zero' activity is."
What's better than... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's better than medical information that helps people? Ideologically driven conspiracy of course!
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We really are on the dumbest timeline.
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In other news, the good and brave Vladimir Putin just granted an Easter ceasefire to those dirty Ukrainians. His kind benevolence even extends to those who start wars with his country!
Re: What's better than... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Don't forget George Soros. Pretty sure he's involved in the conspiracy somehow. He always is. For 95 he really gets around.
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What are you talking about? Hunter Biden started that conflict by invading Russia. He's also personally responsible for global climate change. Trump himself told me.
The fact that this was modded up as "Interesting" instead of funny is pretty fucking scary. Of course, now watch my comment will be modded up as funny because that's par for the course these days.
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Remains to be seen if it isn't a ruse to get some Ukrainian civilians in one place, so that a very peaceful Soviet SS-23 renamed to "Iskander" can turn them into a bloody pulp, as happened a week ago in Sumi, two weeks before that in Kharkiv and three weeks before... and three years ago in Kramatorsk and ...
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Re:What's better than... (Score:4, Informative)
What's better depends on who you ask, for those in power it's medical disinformation that hurts people.
Can't wait for SuperKendall's take, just as soon as he gets it from Bret Weinstein. Not that it matters because as SuperKendall told us, humans have natural immunity to COVID.
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Which is why anyone even suggesting anything besides the wet market theory was ridiculed, we were told to clean all surfaces touched by someone with covid within 72 hours, told that masks did no good etc etc etc, right?
Re: What's better than... (Score:2)
Well, what type of mask, for who, and where?
Re:What's better than... (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost like recommendations changed when more was learned about the virus.
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> Which is why anyone even suggesting anything besides the wet market theory was ridiculed
This is a lie. People who promoted the idea that China intentionally leaked the virus were ridiculed because it was self evidently bonkers. Other theories were treated as possible but the wet market one seemed the most likely.
> we were told to clean all surfaces touched by someone with covid within 72 hours
Indeed. You were told that in the early stages of the pandemic when it wasn't certain what would work and wh
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You know the difference between protecting yourself and protecting others, right? Masks are not PPE in this context, it is source control.
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This, for the love of FSM. Surgeons have been wearing masks for a long time. And it's not because they fear catching something from the patient.
Emails showing leak intentionally discredited ... (Score:2)
People who promoted the idea that China intentionally leaked the virus were ridiculed because it was self evidently bonkers. Other theories were treated as possible but the wet market one seemed the most likely.
Not really. The wet market theory was the politically chosen and promoted one. The leading men of science in the government left an email trail showing they were politically motivated in promoting it, in discrediting the accidental leak theory. They were funding and/or involved in gain of function research on the type of virus behind covid. This lab was known to be unsafe from State Department interactions with the Chinese staff. Who admitted safety problems and asked for help. When gain of function was bro
Re: What's better than... (Score:2)
Are lab leaks conspiracy theories now? We really are in the dumbest time line.
Start with the Marburg virus outbreak of 1967 and report your findings.
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Nice strawman. Get back to me when you have something even vaguely intelligent to say.
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The virus accidentally leaking: Not a conspiracy theory. Just unproven and relatively unlikely.
China intentionally leaking the virus: A conspiracy theory, and a self evidently bonkers one at that.
You were ridiculed at the start if you claimed the latter, not the former.
Re:What's better than... (Score:5, Insightful)
You bet your ass it matters (Score:2)
If you stop those policies you stop the next pandemic. But if you stop those policies the Chinese rural economy goes kaboom. Yeah we could just subsidize the rural economy but you need those people working because people working long hours don't ask questions about democracy and government. Idle hands, devil's plaything, yada yada yada
So China is still running unsafe
Re: You bet your ass it matters (Score:2)
And the next pandemic is going to make COVID look like a summer vacation. Because it's not going to be a COVID variant it's going to be a bird flu variant and those are many times more lethal.
Let me add that if it happened now, as actual hostile activity from China, the USA would be defeated permanently.
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What's better than medical information that helps people? Ideologically driven conspiracy of course!
Don't you sully the good name of Joseph Goebbels!
"Every one of the five pieces of evidence supporting the lab leak hypothesis ... is factually incorrect, embellished, or presented in a misleading way," [wrote Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada]. "But making evidence-based arguments in good faith about the pandemic's origin is not the purpose of this document. This is pure propaganda, intended to justify the systematic devastation of the federal government, particularly programs devoted to public health and biomedical research,"
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This is one of the cases where there just isn't a way to confirm one theory or the other. That's not the answer people want to hear, so they run to the mental safety of utter conviction that one theory or another is correct.
It's a quite pure manifestation of Dunnig-Kreuger. You end up with utter conviction, coupled with an utter lack of real knowledge.
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Of course it matters where it came form, in trying to stop the next pandemic.
Kooks and cranks (Score:2)
The lab theory people were treated as kooks and cranks for a long time because the theory was spread without proof by kooks and cranks.
If you search for a missing body by throwing darts at a map while blindfolded then digging up those areas, finding the body is the luck of a kook and crank, not a solid methodology. If they happen to find the body in one of the areas not dug up and you afterwards sneak into the map room to drive a dart directly into the spot, well, that's what the lab leak types did as they
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> The lab theory people were treated as kooks and cranks for a long time because the theory was spread without proof by kooks and cranks.
More specifically, it wasn't "It might have been transferred somehow from a lab that was holding on to a sample to the population by accident" that was ridiculed. The kooks and cranks proposed two utterly kooky and cranky theories that were both referred to as the "lab leak" theory:
1. China intentionally leaked it.
2. China genetically engineered it, and leaked it.
These
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Agreed.
RFK jr (Score:3)
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RFK Jr can team up with Jordan Peterson to solve the autism epidemic using forced monogamy.
Re: RFK jr (Score:2)
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The cure will drive to your house autonomously and an Optimus robot will administer it via neural implant.
Re:RFK jr (Score:5, Insightful)
We're making measles great again! How about a doctor with measles treating children? https://apnews.com/article/tex... [apnews.com]
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I'll bet you anything that now that this is out RFK Jr. won't even have the decency to walk back his praise of this doctor.
This man should be losing his ability to practice medicine for endangering so many people with such a blatant disregard for his entire medical education and yet he'll probably end up a brave right wing hero.
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Seems legit. I just wish measles were more effective at ending genetic dead ends.
And The American Sheeple Continue To Graze (Score:1)
The grasslands of compliance and stupidity.
Values (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what happens when you have no values. You think it's OK to promote anti-reality beliefs and let millions suffer and even die unnecessarily if it helps you gain or hold power. Awesome.
The COVID lab leak theory somehow means to MAGAs that Trump did nothing wrong with his COVID response that resulted in a much higher death toll than comparable countries. And that COVID was a hoax, and vaccines cause autism. Promoting this instead of normal public health messaging is a simple move to shore up support.
The government exists to coordinate the population, and generally in a democracy it's supposed to do so for the common benefit, yet here we have a population that voted for ignorance even as it killed them, and that was harnessed by evil people with a cheap moronic conman as their frontman to guide the US towards a corporate feudalism structure. Everyone will be worse off, even those at the top of the power structure... but they all apparently get off on the idea that it's OK so long as someone they don't like is even worse off whether they deserve it or not.
Re: Values (Score:2)
The government exists to coordinate the population, and generally in a democracy it's supposed to do so for the common benefit, yet
No a government doesn't exist to coordinate the population. It exists to provide services to citizens that enable them to seek out their own path and full potential, services that by their nature require a monopoly to exists. Such as adminstration of the legal system and property rights, maintaining a military, a currency and establishing uniform weights and measures.
A democratic government, in particular, explicitly acknowledges that it exists to serve its people rather than to control or "coordinate the p
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A democratic government, in particular, explicitly acknowledges that it exists to serve its people rather than to control or "coordinate the population."
A government's raison d'être does not necessarily have anything to do with the method through which it is appointed.
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"alternative to Trump is not worthy of trust at all, because they were caught red-handed engaging in smear campaigns, cover-ups, and other anti-democratic tactics"
So we need Trump, because he's... defending democracy? Being very respectful and not smearing anyone? He's an honest man who would never engage in a cover-up?
This is why I reserve the right to use the word "retarded".
Re: Values (Score:4, Interesting)
With the Canadian election pending, they're out in full force on social media doing exactly what they did for Trump in the US.
"The rational people aren't perfect, the obvious thing to do is to vote for our dumpster fire".
I get there are the power-mad and koolaid-drinkers who promote that, but how in the ever loving fuck are there enough stupid people to fall for it and make a difference at the polls?
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Hear, Hear. Won't somebody think of the viruses, bacteria, worms ?
Thanks to Trump and RFK jr, freedom is finally in the USA, where chicken pox can spread unhindered, covid can flow from loud mouth to loud mouth, where Thyphoid Mary, if she were alive today, could work in all restaurants spreading that sweet sweet typhoid.
A good government is not a government that tries to prevent diseases from spreading, it's a government that sits on the side line, firing scientists, making sure the numbers are good, findi
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I'm sure China won't be pleased, but this could have global ramifications. Countries are going to be even less willing to share information on the next pandemic if they think that some moron like Trump will blame them for leaking it from a lab.
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I'm more concerned about conspiracies being no better than secrecy when it comes to sharing information for global health protection.
Like China's wet markets, the US is going to become a major reservoir and potential breeding ground of deadly disease outbreaks.
You're going to be able to say 'filthy diseased Americans' and be factually correct rather than just being nasty.
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We have have to introduce vaccination certificates when applying for visas.
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In Canada we had people screaming 'muh freedums' over vaccine passports, I imagine in the US it's a lot worse.
But forget visas, your regional travel rights should be restricted if you refuse to get vaccinated (excluding those with legitimate medical reasons due to diagnosed immune issues). Nobody needs you spreading diseases to new populations.
And those regressive religious communities? I'd wall them in until they update their ideas about medicine to include being more respectful of their neighbours.
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The COVID lab leak theory somehow means to MAGAs that Trump did nothing wrong with his COVID response that resulted in a much higher death toll than comparable countries.
I'm not even sure it's that thought out. Sure, there's an idea that it makes China more culpable (they were irresponsibly playing with dangerous stuff), but I really think it gets to the core of conspiracy theories.
A global pandemic resulting from a crossover event in the wild (or a food market). What do you do with that? There's no one to really blame, no way to know the full story (where the first crossover happened), and there's no real way to prevent it either. It's just a thing that happened and might
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There are certainly lies you can tell that straightforwardly advance your agenda if you are indifferent to truth, or people you can kill or allow to die to suit your purposes; but what baffles me is why this would be a case where that works:
If your problem is that the US COVID numbers were both bad in absolute terms and strikingly bad in relative terms vs. comparable countries; how exactly does it help you to claim that a perfi
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>Here, though, it is being treated as though it is an exculpatory lie; but there appears to be no exculpation implied. It's just baffling.
"China bad". Full stop. You established "China bad" and you don't have to think any further about things like "Trump bad". ESPECIALLY if it's a complicated thought requiring introspection and re-evaluation of the tribe's established beliefs... "Trump bad because he bungled the response to COVID which I believe is a hoax yet simultaneously believe was a threat becau
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The COVID lab leak theory somehow means to MAGAs that Trump did nothing wrong with his COVID response that resulted in a much higher death toll than comparable countries. And that COVID was a hoax, and vaccines cause autism.
insert rant here - If you can't tell when someones full or shit intentionally, or accidentally, it does not matter. Fearless leader either never opened a history book or ignored anything it contained. The quality of his advisors is also a circus act, they should be looking at each other trying to figure out who the real idiot is, yes its all of them.
There are large numbers of knuckle draggers walking the earth and now they elected a leader. Yes, I blame the democrats for being weak enough to let it ha
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Many Nuclear experts believe the radiation ...
For an analogy to work, it has to be, well, analogous. Yours breaks down on its very first sentence, since there are zero experts (or even normal people) who are making that claim.
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Not a great analogy. The radiation present at Chernobyl is wildly improbable to explain via just a meteor, that's is a falsifiable theory, it could be proven and indeed it was. If there was a meteor it could be found and tested.
The thing with COVID is that the natural origin/wet market theory has yet to be falsified, indeed it cannot be falsified or it has not arrived this point so until there is a total smoking gun both theories *could be true*. The reason this whole argument exists is neither have been
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And yet believing Chernobyl was a natural event requires the same level of credulity to think that Sars-COV-2 was a zoonotic event
No, it does not.
Also, correlation != causation.
Also, none of the two events should be based on belief, but rather available data. When there is no overwhelming proof, you don't flip a coin and pick sides, you simply say "we are not sure yet" and leave it there.
Any questions?
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Actually, the Soviets kept denying that an accident had happened until it became impossible to hide it, and then kept telling people that it was really not a big deal, that radiation wasn't dangerous at all and that everything is being taken care of.
Kind of like a president of another former superpower denied that the epidemic was a problem, then kept telling people there are only a few cases, that it isn't spreading fast, that it isn't all that dangerous and that it is easily treated with over-the-counter
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We have invented the memory hole (Score:2)
Nothing to see. move along. (Score:2)
Rewriting history to fit your narrative is not fascist at all.
https://i.imgur.com/GXtUhMN.gi... [imgur.com]
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So the UK intelligence agencies, German intelligence agencies, FBI, DOE, and the CIA are all under the thrall of ignorant fascists that rewrite history, eh? They all give more credence to the lab leak theory than the natural origin theory.
At some point, it’s smart to check your instruments and recalibrate. Wipe down the lens on your microscope. Everything you don’t agree with isn’t “fascist”.
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We’re at the sending people to the gulags phase. Doge has siphoned enough personal information to become the stasi. https://www.npr.org/2025/03/11... [npr.org]
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It isn't, it is a trick from older times.
This is why the world thinks Nero was a bad guy, Pliny the Elder didn't like him and his is the authoritative version of propaganda that we have.
I didnt think it was possible (Score:2)
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Ha, RFK Jr. is totally Doctor Spaceman. Nice reference.
"easy pickings" (Score:2)
the next pathogen with pandemic potential will find us easy pickings
Anyone else think this is a Darwinian Feature?
Covid was 100% preventable (Score:2)
Whether it was a lab leak or not, Covid could have been prevented. The tangerine traitor fired the pandemic response team, fired our own cdc inspectors in China(pretty stupid to trust China over our own people), and ignored the pandemic playbook. If the US implemented an international quarantine of Wuhan in November of 2019 along with contact tracing we would be laughing at it like it was Sars or the bird flu.
Face the truth. Every American death from Covid is on trumps hands--and 77 million dumb fucks
Well I hope this puts it all to rest (Score:2)
Joke's aside we know the lab leak is bullshit because COVID does not transmit well if at all over touch. You pretty much have to breathe it in. And simple n95 masks plus hand washing is more than enough to keep COVID under control. The reason it's spread is we couldn't get people to do that shit. Because of incredibly stupid political reasons.
The virus has been sequenced and tracked down to either the wet markets or the forests that are bei
Where have all the Russian/Chinese trolls gone? (Score:2)
Not a long time passing, but I was rather surprised to see a relatively reasonable discussion of the sensitive topic. The "usual suspects" AKA probable sock puppets were taking the day off? Celebrating Easter? Hmm... I don't think that could be it. Russia is on a different religious calendar and Easter isn't a big thing in most parts of China...
But this latest search was for Funny and I'm not sure I should be disappointed by the lack of humor as regards this story. Politicized murder of the truth lacks intr
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Not a long time passing, but I was rather surprised to see a relatively reasonable discussion of the sensitive topic. The "usual suspects" AKA probable sock puppets were taking the day off? Celebrating Easter? Hmm... I don't think that could be it. Russia is on a different religious calendar and Easter isn't a big thing in most parts of China...
Actually, this year both calendars are in synch, so it's Easter everywhere.
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Thanks, though now I feel I should have looked it up... I sort of knew it was possible.
The lab leak (Score:2)
...a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words "lab" and "leak"...
So Donald Trump leaked from a lab? Yeah, I can buy that.
Um (Score:2)
"A federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and treatment for COVID-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak." (This despite the fact that "about 325 Americans have died from COVID per week on average over the past four weeks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.")
Um - a lab leak starting it is in no way contradictory to X people dying per week of it.