Democrats push back on Republican COVID-19 report

House Democrats on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Tuesday released their own report responding to the Republican-led panel's final report, deeming the subcommittee to have "failed" in its endeavor to uncover the origins of COVID-19 and instead having "fueled extreme narratives."

The select subcommittee on Monday released its final report, in which they concluded the COVID-19 virus likely originated from a lab leak, a theory that Republicans on the panel vehemently defended throughout their investigation.

Among the Republicans' other findings were oft-repeated accusations that Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), sought to suppress the lab leak theory and that the National Institutes of Health had funded gain-of-function research that may have led to a lab leak.

"Select Subcommittee Republicans' final report reflects two years wasted on political stunts instead of preventing and preparing for the next pandemic," a spokesperson for Democrats on the subcommittee said of the report on Monday.

"Instead of coming together with Democrats to get ahead of future viruses or fortify America's public health infrastructure and workforce, Select Subcommittee Republicans prioritized extreme probes that vilified our nation's scientists and public health officials in an effort to whitewash former President Trump's disastrous COVID-19 response," they added.

The Democrats' report pushed back on and dissected several of these claims, saying the GOP members had failed to "shed meaningful light on the question of the COVID-19 pandemic's origins." It blasted the criticisms against Fauci as ranging from "baseless to frivolous."

"Today, a zoonotic origin and lab accident are both plausible, as is a 'hybrid' scenario reflecting a mixture of the two," the report stated. "It was repeatedly explained to the Select Subcommittee that all prior epidemics and pandemics, as well as almost all prior outbreaks, have zoonotic origins. At the same time, a lab origin for SARS-CoV-2 also remains plausible."

The report did show bipartisan agreement when it came to instances of likely misconduct. As was also noted in the Republican report on Monday, Democrats cited David Morens, senior advisor at NIAID, as having conducted himself in a way "unbecoming" of someone in his position.

Democrats were also in agreement that EcoHealth Alliance, a nongovernment organization that sub-awarded federal grants for infectious disease research prior to the pandemic, had not adequately monitored its grant recipients' work, including the research done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

"During the 118th Congress, Select Subcommittee Republicans have failed to prove their spurious allegations," the Democrats concluded in their report. "They failed to shed additional light on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 — and instead advanced baseless attacks on Dr. Fauci and other public health professionals and further eroded public trust in our nation’s scientists and public health officials."

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