The Trump administration has relaunched COVID-19 health websites, blaming the origins of the coronavirus on a lab leak in China and criticising former president Joe Biden.
Websites such as Covid.gov and Covidtests.gov were formerly government-run websites where Americans could receive information on long COVID, vaccine options and testing resources.
But as of Friday local time, the administration redirected those seeking out the websites to information critical of former top US health official Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization — favouring a laboratory leak theory.
"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 naturally," Trump's revamped website read.
COVID-19 health guidelines could no longer be found on the redirected site.
In 2023, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US government has not reached a definitive conclusion and consensus on the pandemic's origins.
Beijing has said there was no credibility to claims that a laboratory leak likely caused the pandemic.
The website was also critical of steps like social distancing, mask mandates and lockdowns.
The revamp is the latest from the Trump administration — who has been scrapping government health websites to remove information such as statistics on HIV among transgender people.
Dr Fauci, Mr Biden and the WHO had no immediate comment.
Soon after taking office, Mr Trump said that Dr Fauci, who has faced threats since leading the country's COVID-19 response, should hire his own security and ended US security for him.
US President Donald Trump has also began a 12-month process of withdrawing the US — by far the WHO's largest financial backer — from the agency when he took office in January.
The website revamp reflects The White House's position that a laboratory leak theory is the “confirmable truth.”
In January, the CIA also said it assessed COVID-19 is "more likely" to have emerged from a lab rather than from nature.
Those findings, however, were made in "low confidence" and the organisation added both scenarios — lab origin and natural origin — remain plausible.
China's government says it supports and has taken part in research to determine COVID-19's origin, and has accused Washington of politicising the matter, especially because of efforts by US intelligence agencies to investigate.
Reuters/ABC
