Nearly half of Americans believe COVID-19 was deliberately released
Forty-eight percent of Americans believe COVID-19 was deliberately released by China as a way to attack the United States, according to a Rasmussen poll published Friday.
The survey of over a thousand respondents also found that 66% are confident that the virus originated in a lab rather than in nature, including 42% who said they are “very confident.”
The lab leak theory has been officially adopted by the United States as the origin of COVID-19. In January, the CIA concluded that the virus escaped from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, rejecting the zoonotic theory that it originated from bats at a wet market. Last week, the White House redirected COVID.Gov to a landing page with a detailed analysis supporting the lab leak theory.
“A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is ... most likely the origin of COVID-19,” says the website. “‘The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2’ publication — which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab leak theory — was prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated in nature,” the site adds.
Media: ‘There has never been a consensus’
Under the Biden administration, the lab leak theory was considered a “dangerous conspiracy theory” and those who supported it were censored and even suspended from social media. Legacy media outlets repeatedly smeared those who suggested the virus originated in the Wuhan lab, though now mainstream media claim there has never been a conclusion one way or the other.
“There has never been a consensus or a ‘smoking gun’ to explain what started the pandemic,” reported ABC News on Saturday, even though the publication in previous years assertively dismissed the lab leak theory as a “conspiracy theory” and “disinformation.”
Other legacy news outlets like NPR continue to cling to the zoonotic theory despite opposing evidence from a conclusive investigation by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and confirmation by a Wuhan lab insider. Likewise, Dr. Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth Alliance, stated as early as 2022 that the virus emerged from the Wuhan lab.
Nevertheless, the nexus of government, legacy media, and social media giants had shut down any support for the lab leak theory, which they claimed was “dangerous” to public health.
"Public health officials often mislead the American people through conflicting messaging, knee-jerk reactions, and a lack of transparency," the White House site says. "Most egregiously, the federal government demonized alternative treatments and disfavored narratives, such as the lab leak theory, in a shameful effort to coerce and control the American people's health decisions."
