How the Cover-Up Won: The Lab Leak Truth and Our Collective Apathy

The world was upended by a virus that emerged in late 2019, killing millions, wrecking economies, and permanently altering societies. But perhaps the most shocking aspect of the Covid pandemic is not that it happened—but that, despite overwhelming evidence pointing to a lab origin, most people simply do not care. If a plane crash caused by human error killed a few hundred people, there would be lawsuits, congressional hearings, and unrelenting media coverage. Yet here we have a disaster orders of magnitude larger, with 20 million dead and $30 trillion lost, and the outrage is limited at best. How did this happen?

Maybe the answer lies in how thoroughly and for how long the truth was buried. In the early days of the pandemic, a handful of scientists under Antony Fauci’s leadership worked overtime to shut down any debate over a possible lab leak. Now, in a moment so brazen it would be funny if it weren’t so enraging, two of the most prominent figures in that cover-up—Ralph Baric and Ian Lipkin—are in The New York Times warning about a new, dangerous coronavirus experiment being conducted by Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists under grossly inadequate biosafety precautions. They claim it “could have significant risks for people worldwide.”

Here’s the problem: Baric was the architect of the very experiment that likely caused Covid. The fact that he was the mastermind behind the 2018 DEFUSE blueprint for engineering Covid-like viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is conveniently omitted by The New York Times. We know Baric was aware of the Wuhan lab’s laughably inadequate biosafety standards—he even flagged this issue in a DEFUSE draft comment, which was later uncovered through FOIA lawsuits. Baric was also a frequent collaborator with the Wuhan lab on creating dangerous viruses but remained silent, both before and after the outbreak. Meanwhile, Lipkin co-authored the now-infamous Proximal Origin paper, a fraudulent publication that became the scientific and media establishment’s go-to document for dismissing the lab leak theory. These men didn’t just fail to prevent the disaster—they helped cover it up. And now, they expect to be taken seriously as they warn about a new one.

It’s like O.J. giving knife safety lessons, not just with a straight face, but with the New York Times applauding him for his expertise.