A federal web site sharing public well being details about COVID-19 vaccines, therapy and testing has been changed with one devoted to theories about “the true origins of Covid-19” and scrutiny of previous well being officers’ dealing with of the coronavirus pandemic.
COVID.gov’s dramatic reboot Friday has the location now that includes a photograph of President Donald Trump with the phrases “LAB LEAK.” Under it lists sweeping allegations of presidency obstruction and cover-ups on the virus, which it states “most likely” got here from a laboratory in China.
“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” states the web site, which was beforehand listed as overseen by the Division of Health and Human Companies.
A White Home spokesperson in an e mail to HuffPost on Friday declined to say the place the general public ought to now go for well being info and suggestions on COVID-19.
Spokesman Kaelan Dorr, in an obvious response to a query asking in regards to the web site’s objective or purpose, vowed that the Trump administration “WILL be the most transparent administration in U.S. history.”
“Nothing will stop us from innovating and finding creative ways to uphold our end of the bargain,” Dorr mentioned.
A spokesperson with the Division of Health and Human Companies advised HuffPost that it defers remark to the White Home.
The CIA in late January mentioned that it believes the virus most probably originated from a lab, an evaluation that it mentioned was made with “low confidence.” This conclusion adopted President Joe Biden’s administration requesting a recent overview throughout its remaining weeks.
Along with questioning the virus’ origins, the location criticizes previous suggestions and orders on social distancing, masks mandates and lockdowns enacted in the course of the pandemic, calling them pointless and damaging to the U.S. financial system and “mental and physical health of Americans.”
Research have proven that these measures drastically diminished the unfold of the illness that has killed greater than 1.2 million Individuals since January 2020.
The web site particularly targets former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as director of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Illnesses and as each Trump and Biden’s chief medical adviser.
The web site, at its worst, says Fauci helped “push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated naturally” and scrutinizes a presidential pardon he was later granted by then-President Joe Biden.
Trump, whereas in workplace, routinely butted heads with Fauci and different federal well being officers who pushed again in opposition to his recommended medical therapies and public responses to the well being emergency. Trump promoted unproven therapies for the virus as “cures” and even as soon as recommended injecting bleach as a therapy throughout a press briefing.
A 2020 examine by Cornell College discovered Trump to be “the largest driver” of COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
Trump’s present well being secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., additionally promoted COVID-19 conspiracy theories earlier than being tapped to supervise the nation’s well being division.
In 2023, Kennedy reportedly was heard suggesting that the coronavirus may have been genetically engineered by the Chinese language to focus on sure races.
“They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race,” he mentioned of the Chinese language, in accordance with the New York Put up.
