Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) says “all of the evidence points towards those labs in Wuhan” as the source of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Cotton also said that if China continues to try to cover up the origins of the virus, “it’s reasonable for the American people to draw the conclusion that China is covering up an accident in those labs.”
“I think all of the evidence points towards those labs in Wuhan, and if we find out that that’s the origins of this virus, then China really needs to pay,” Cotton said Monday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”
“They haven’t paid enough yet for unleashing this plague on the world. I don’t think that China’s going to reveal what happened in those labs anytime soon. I think they’re going to continue to try to cover it up, and if that’s the case, I think it’s reasonable for the American people to draw the conclusion that China is covering up an accident in those labs,” he said.
Experts agree that the pandemic originated in Wuhan, but social media outlets like Facebook and others have, until recently, censored posts that say the virus originated in a lab. In the last few weeks, though, an increasing number of reports have presented the case that the virus may have originated in the Wuhan facility, and even members of President Joe Biden’s cabinet are demanding answers.
The Wall Street Journal last week reported that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute were hospitalized in November 2019 with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report.
“The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 ‘with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness,’” The Journal reported. “The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19’s origins.”
With Republicans on Capitol Hill demanding more information about where the virus originated, Dr. Anthony Fauci — who has repeatedly declared it came from a bat — appeared to walk back his earlier suggestion that the virus moved from animals to humans naturally.
A top Biden cabinet member last week demanded that the World Health Organization (WHO) launch a more “transparent” investigation into the origins of COVID-19 as Republican lawmakers seek answers and top scientists admit the virus could have come from a Chinese lab.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Tuesday said in an address to the World Health Assembly, a conference organized by the WHO, that independent experts worldwide must be allowed to “fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak.”
Joseph Curl covered the White House for a dozen years and ran the Drudge Report for four years. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @JosephCurl.