Covid origins investigation: US House of Representatives holds first hearing

A US congressional committee investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic has held its first public hearing in Washington.

The panel, formed by a new Republican majority in the US House of Representatives, is aiming to establish how the coronavirus emerged.

Some US officials have concluded that Covid “most likely” came from an accidental lab leak in Wuhan, China.

But many scientists point out there is no evidence that it leaked from a lab.

And the White House has said there is no consensus across the US government on the virus’s origins.

The House select subcommittee’s key witness on Wednesday was Dr Robert Redfield, who led the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when the outbreak began in 2020.

An early proponent of the lab leak theory, Dr Redfield said it was “not scientifically plausible” to him that the virus had natural origins.

He told the committee he’d been sidelined at the beginning of the pandemic as his views were not in line with other major scientists like Dr Anthony Fauci, the de-facto face of the US pandemic response.

“It was told to me that they wanted a single narrative, and that I obviously had a different point of view,” he said.

“Science has debate and they squashed any debate.”

Some studies suggest the virus made the leap from animals to humans in Wuhan, possibly at the city’s seafood and wildlife market.

The market is near a world-leading virus laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which conducted research into coronaviruses.

Dr Redfield restated his opposition to so-called gain of function research, in which viruses are manipulated to become more infectious in lab environments.

He added that US agencies had likely funded such research at the Wuhan institute.

The House panel, which consists of nine Republicans and seven Democrats, has said it aims to stay above the fray of partisan politics.

But it may prove difficult given the divisive subject matter.

On the panel is Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who used Wednesday’s hearing to air her concerns about decisions made by federal agencies during the pandemic.

At the outset of the hearing, Democrat Raul Ruiz protested the inclusion of witness Nicholas Wade, the author of a controversial book on race and genetics that has been endorsed by a former Ku Klux Klan leader.

Mr Ruiz argued Mr Wade had written a dangerous book and his testimony could not be relied upon, but Mr Wade defended his book and remained at the hearing.

The spectre of Donald Trump also hung over the proceedings, with Democrat Jamie Raskin suggesting the former president had been sycophantic and fawning in his approach to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The House probe comes a week after FBI Director Christopher Wray said an unintentional lab incident was “most likely” how Covid originated.

A few days before that, the US Department of Energy said it had found the virus was most likely the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, but could only reach that conclusion with “low confidence”.

In response to that, many scientists who have studied the virus said that there was no new scientific evidence pointing to a lab leak.

A natural origin is still the more likely theory, said Professor David Robertson, head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow.