No, DOD didn’t contract for COVID research before pandemic –

CLAIM: A federal website shows the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a COVID-19 research contract before the coronavirus had been publicly known.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The government initially signed an agreement in late 2019 with a contractor, Black & Veatch, as part of biological threat reduction work in Ukraine, according to officials and documents. After the pandemic began, Black & Veatch hired another firm, Labyrinth Gold Health, to provide expertise for Ukraine’s COVID-19 response. The description of the work in a federal database was updated, but the original agreement date remained.

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a faulty claim that federal officials had contracted out COVID-19 work before the pandemic even began.

“Why does the U.S. government data show that the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a contract on the 12th of November, 2019, to Labyrinth Gold Health, Inc., for COVID-19 research — at least one month before the alleged emergence of the novel coronavirus and three months before it was officially dubbed COVID-19?” a man in a video shared on Instagram claims.

The video shows a story from a conspiracy theory website that homed in on a record on USAspending.gov for a sub-award to Labyrinth for “SME MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENTATION AND COVID 19 RESEARCH.” The video notes that the work was being done in Ukraine.

But the Nov. 12, 2019, date reflects the start of a larger contract that was later updated to include COVID-19 work, officials said.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, part of the DOD, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the agency “did not award any contracts in 2019 related to COVID-19.” Instead, it said, a DTRA contractor modified a task order “to assist Ukraine in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, many months after the pandemic had begun.”

“However, the date in the database reflects the original date the Master Servicing Agreement was entered into the system,” the statement continued, adding that the project description title is updated.

The initial contract with the firm Black & Veatch was to “continue to support Ukraine’s peaceful and safe biological detection and diagnostic capabilities and to reduce biological threats, whether they are naturally-occurring, accidental, or intentional, through the provision of equipment, supplies, and training,” according to DTRA.

DTRA’s work includes the long-running Biological Threat Reduction Program, whose work in Ukraine has spurred conspiracy theories amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

The 2019 master agreement with Black & Veatch was later “modified to provide additional COVID-19 pandemic-related support to Ukraine on 25 April 2020 and again on 12 June 2020,” DTRA said.

Labyrinth was brought on to provide that support.

A June 2020 task order called for Labyrinth to provide expertise and support for “Remote Mentoring on COVID-19 Laboratory Diagnosis, Biological Safety and Laboratory Emergency Response in Ukraine.”

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.