The first Senate committee hearing on the origins of COVID-19 began this week. The bipartisan hearing was first announced in March by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Gary Peters (D-MI) as a joint investigation into the origins of COVID, among other things.
“Origins of COVID-19: An Examination of Available Evidence” is the most in-depth hearing to date that analyzed the testimony and evidence from multiple scientists who presented their findings that suggested the virus came from a lab leak. It was the first in a series of Senate hearings regarding the dangerous threats associated with high-risk biological research and technology.
On Tuesday, Paul provided significant evidence to support his claim that COVID originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This included assessments of the virus and the pandemic by government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy, reinforcing claims that COVID came from a lab leak. Paul also provided private communications from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s associates, which was only revealed after Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation. These revelations are arguably some of the most substantial evidence that supports the theory that COVID originated from a lab.
Consider just some of the damning remarks uncovered in Paul’s quest to find the truth that was provided in a press release about the hearing.
“The lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario,” said Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research.
This “version,” as Andersen called it, was also embraced by virologist Robert Garry of Tulane University School of Medicine.
“[I] really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario when you get from the bat virus, or one very similar to it, COVID–19 where you insert exactly four amino acids, 12 nucleotides, and all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function,” Garry said. “I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature.”
The admission from a renowned virologist that he isn’t sure how “this gets accomplished in nature” is a powerful revelation discovered and made public by the Senate hearing. It’s a statement that the public needs to hear — and hear repeatedly if need be. Garry also suggested that the lab leak was plausible, given his knowledge of the research he knew was occurring in Wuhan.
“It’s not crackpot to suggest this could have happened, given the gain of function research we know was happening in Wuhan,” Garry said in one of the statements unearthed by the Senate committee.
Other comments were of similar messaging and tone.
W. Ian Lipkin, the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, was concerned about the “nightmare of circ*mstantial evidence to assess” regarding lab leak possibilities, especially since there was a significant amount of bat coronavirus research being conducted at Wuhan, according to the release.
Moreover, Ralph Baric, cited as a “world-famous gain-of-function researcher” and collaborator with a doctor at Wuhan, conceded that Wuhan’s research and practices could have caused the virus to be released.
“So they [the Wuhan Institute of Virology] have a very large collection of viruses in their laboratory,” Baric said in comments that were discovered for evidence in the hearing. “And so it’s — you know — proximity is a problem. It’s a problem.”
These revelations should give everyone pause and raise numerous red flags. They also run counter to many of the narratives people were told at the height of the pandemic. They raise many questions, including whether or not people can trust the so-called experts or “the science” when they speak to the people in the country. Or are they saying one thing in public and a completely different thing in private?
“So the hearing today is to try and find out whether or not we can get to the truth,” Paul said. “Do we know for certain it came from the lab? No, but there’s a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab. Do we know viruses have come from animals in the past? Yes, they’ve come from animals in the past.”
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Paul also listed some reasons why he believes COVID came from a lab and not an animal.
“There’s no animal reservoir,” Paul said. “There’s no animal handlers with antibiotics. There’s a lot of reasons why there are indications that this could have come from the lab.”
“This is the discussion we’ll have today. This is a discussion that’s long in coming,” Paul said. “It’s been over three years that we’ve been asking for this. But this is great. This is good. We’ll have scientists on both sides of this issue, and I hope we have a spirited debate.”
