Covid-19: a report published by the US Congress maintains that a laboratory leak is the “most plausible” hypothesis

Nearly five years later, Covid-19 continues to raise questions about its origin. A commission from the United States Congress on the pandemic published, Monday, December 2, a report in which it considers that the theory of the leak from a laboratory located in the city of Wuhan, in China, remains the hypothesis “most plausible”.

The publication of this report comes amid a resurgence, since the election of Donald Trump, of the rivalry between the United States and China. The question of the origin of the pandemic, between potential transmission of the virus by an animal or laboratory leak, has thus taken a geopolitical turn, and has been doing so for several years.

A “consensus” between Democrats and Republicans

Re-elected President Donald Trump, for example, repeats – without proof – that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Without deciding on the question, American intelligence assured in a report, dated June 2023, that it had no proof indicating that Covid-19 was actually created in a laboratory. The subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic was established in February 2023, when the Republican Party regained the majority in the House of Representatives.

After two years of investigation, 38 depositions or interviews and 25 hearings, the commission provided a report of more than 500 pages, published Monday, December 2. “This work will help the United States, and the world, predict, prepare for, protect against, and – hopefully – prevent the next pandemic.”declared Brad Wenstrup, president of this commission, also an elected Republican and a podiatrist by trade.

The report boasts of a « consensus » between Democratic and Republican members on several issues, notably on the fact that “the possibility that Covid-19 emerged from an accident linked to a laboratory or research is not a conspiracy theory”.

To support their assertion, the elected officials put forward five reasons, among which, they assert, the fact that “the virus has a biological characteristic not present in nature”. A study, published in September in the journal Cell, however, provided new elements reinforcing the hypothesis of transmission to humans by infected animals introduced into a market in Wuhan at the end of 2019.

The opinion of the US Congress cannot be dissociated from the context in which it was made public, that of the trade war between Washington and Beijing. While diplomatic relations remained lukewarm during the Biden mandate, the return of Donald Trump should push China to take the second step to respond to the draconian sanctions imposed on its industry.

The Republican president, who had already heavily taxed Chinese products including solar panels, steel and aluminum, promised a new increase in customs duties. These accusations – however well-founded they may be – could thus inflame the situation.