Covid-19 was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province in China. India recorded its first case on January 30, 2020 in Kerala, after which the infection spread widely across the country.
Now, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has made fresh allegations about the origins of the pandemic and about US-funded biological laboratories abroad. She claimed that research conducted with American funding at a Wuhan-based company in China was responsible for the spread of the coronavirus.
Gabbard accused former US President Joe Biden’s adviser Anthony Fauci of playing a role in both the outbreak and efforts to cover up information related to it. She said dangerous pathogens were handled in these labs and that details were deliberately kept from the American public.
She also alleged that scientists who tried to expose the research were threatened. Gabbard said that after the Donald Trump administration took charge, her office initiated steps to investigate those laboratories.
Gabbard is the eighth Director of National Intelligence. She served as a member of the US House of Representatives from Hawaii from 2013 to 2021, was previously a Democrat, became an independent in 2022, and joined the Republican Party in 2024. She is also noted as the first Hindu elected to the US House.
