Biden is letting China dodge responsibility for COVID — what else?

 It’s now almost undeniable that a leak (or two?) from a Chinese lab set off the COVID pandemic that’s killed nearly 7 million, including more than a million Americans.

Yet Beijing continues to evade responsibility, with no pushback from Team Biden.

What won’t he let China get away with?

At a House hearing Tuesday, former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe told lawmakers a leak is the “only” credible explanation for the virus: “My informed assessment, as a person with as much access as anyone to our government’s intelligence,” is that “a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science and by common sense.”

That followed a Senate committee’s release Monday of its full, 301-page report on COVID’s origins, which cited “two leaks” — possibly as early as “July or August” 2019 — as “the most likely” source.

What kind of evidence has emerged?

• The Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting risky “gain-of-function” research, despite shoddy biosafety measures.
• Lab researchers began getting sick in the fall of 2019, which is consistent with a leak.
• Cases of flu-like symptoms surged in Wuhan in October and November that year, yet tests for influenza proved negative.
• Beijing rushed personnel to the lab around then. “All guards went up,” notes ex-Health and Human Services and intel official Larry Kerr, an adviser on the report.
• A Chinese military scientist filed a patent for a COVID vaccine in February 2020, suggesting work on it began as early as November — before most folks ever heard of the virus.
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Most tellingly, China’s been covering up evidence — “destroying medical tests, samples and data,” “intimidating and disappearing witnesses,” “lying and coercing global health authorities” and intentionally spreading propaganda, Ratcliffe said.

Why won’t Team Biden press the issue? Because it fears the “enormous implications” of blaming China.

Which is nothing less than outrageous.

As David Feith, a former top State Department official put it, if COVID “emerged from a lab, particularly one conducting gain-of-function virology experiments, then this was akin to [a] Hiroshima event.”

Pinning that down is critical, because a mistake or “deliberate” act at such a lab could pose a “species-level risk” to humans.

It’s been more than three years since COVID hit, and Beijing is avoiding accountability for the worst pandemic in a century as President Joe Biden & Co. remain radio silent.

China’s leaders have plainly learned the lesson: This administration will let you get away with almost anything.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/18/biden-is-letting-china-dodge-responsibility-for-covid-what-else/