Covid-19 originated in Wuhan lab, alleges Republican congressional report

A long running congressional investigation into the coronavirus pandemic in the US has concluded, with Democratic and Republican members publishing competing reports. The Republican version alleges that the virus emerged in a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, rather than breaking out at a nearby live animal food market as most scientists believe.

But the contrasting reports generated more heat than light. The Republicans on the committee brought no new evidence to support their claim, while much of the Democratic report was devoted to criticising the methodology of the Republican one.

“Four years after the onset of the worst pandemic in 100 years, the weight of the evidence increasingly supports the lab leak hypothesis,” concludes the Republican majority report of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.1

“Today, a zoonotic origin and lab accident are both plausible, as is a ‘hybrid’ scenario reflecting a mixture of the two,” the Democratic minority report concludes. “Republicans’ investigation did not uncover the origins …