A Politico-Harvard poll revealed on Friday that a majority of Democrats believe the Chinese coronavirus originated from a lab in China.
“The new survey shows 52 percent believe the virus came out of a lab, including 59 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats, while 28 percent said it was from an infected animal,” the survey states.
The poll also admits “what was once a fringe belief held mainly among some on the political right has become accepted by most Republicans, as well as most Democrats, amid heightened scrutiny of the lab leak theory.”
A Pew Research Center poll in March 2020, when former President Trump was sounding the alarm, found only “29 percent of Americans believed the virus was made in a Chinese lab and released either accidentally or intentionally.”
But the consensus has changed because of evidence-based reporting, such as a Wall Street Journal piece on May 23 revealing a report that “researchers went to hospital in November 2019, shortly before confirmed outbreak.”
Thereafter, on June 15, federal government investigators launched an investigation into how the National Institute of Health (NIH) “manages and monitors” its ongoing grant program to foreign laboratories, such as the lab in Wuhan.
On July 2, the White Coat Waste Project issued a study indicating that in 2020, the NIH spent an estimated $140 million of foreign aid for animal testing in at least 29 countries.
The probe is likely to include Peter Daszak, EcoHealth president, who thanked Dr. Anthony Fauci in April 2020 for publicly dismissing the theory that the coronavirus may have leaked from the lab, emails revealed.
Fauci defended himself against the “misconstrued” June 3 email by stating, “That email was from a person to me saying ‘thank you’ for whatever it is he thought I said, and I said that I think the most likely origin is a jumping of species.”
Fauci admitted on May 25 the NIH funded the Wuhan lab but continues to deny “gain of function” funding of bat or other species experiments.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) disagrees with Fauci’s contention, stating Fauci lied and committed perjury with his gain of function comments.
Meanwhile, on June 29, NBC News revealed Dr. Shi Zhengli, who is called the “bat woman” and is one of the top scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), “has multiple connections with military officials.”
“Shi and others collaborated with a military scientist on coronavirus research in spring 2018 and with another military scientist, Zhou Yusen, in December 2019,” the report explained. “In fall 2020, an article that scientist authored lists him in a footnote as deceased. NBC has been unable to ascertain the circumstances of his death.”