Fact check: Post distorts Defense Department contract with COVID …

The claim: Department of Defense awarded contract for COVID-19 research before virus existed

An April 13, 2022, Expose article makes a claim about the Department of Defense.

“U.S. Department of Defense awarded a contract for ‘COVID-19 Research’ in Ukraine 3 months before Covid was known to even exist,” reads the article’s headline.

The article was shared to Facebook over 300 times, according to social media insights tool Crowdtangle.

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Our rating: False

A Department of Defense agency contracted with an engineering firm in 2019 for work unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesperson said. The contract was modified after the pandemic began to include COVID-19 research.

2019 contract was modified after pandemic began

The Expose article is an example of a long-running trend of baseless conspiracy theories that federal agencies and independent organizations planned the COVID-19 pandemic. USA TODAY has repeatedly debunked these types of claims. 

As evidence, the article cites a Department of Defense sub-award worth $365,911 given to the firm Labyrinth Global Health on Nov 12, 2019, listed in a government database as “SME MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENTATION AND COVID 19 RESEARCH.”

However, that award is part of a much larger contract updated to include COVID-19 research after the pandemic began, according to Andrea Chaney, a spokesperson for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the Department of Defense.

Chaney said the agency did not award any contracts related to COVID-19 in 2019. 

The agency originally contracted with Black and Veatch, a construction engineering company, in October 2019 to support “Ukraine’s peaceful and safe biological detection and diagnostic capabilities and to reduce biological threats” through equipment, supplies and training, Chaney said.

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Black and Veatch signed a master servicing agreement that was entered into a database in November 2019, Chaney said. Labyrinth Global Health is a subcontracter to Black and Veach and received a sub-award to help with the overall contract.

But after the pandemic began, the contract was modified to provide additional pandemic-related support to Ukraine in April 2020 and again in June 2020, Chaney said. Those changes just aren’t visible on the government grant site the article cited in jumping to its conclusion.

“The date of each modification is not reflected on the USASpending.gov page, which stays as the date the original MSA (master servicing agreement) was entered into the system, but the project description title is updated to reflect the latest changes in the task order,” Chaney said.

The description of the June 2020 update in a document provided by the agency says its purpose was to provide “mentorship support to perform Remote Mentoring on COVID-19 Laboratory Diagnosis, Biological Safety and Laboratory Emergency Response in Ukraine.”

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment.

PolitiFact, the Associated Press and Lead Stories also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

• Andrea Chaney, April 18, Email exchange with USA TODAY
• Defense Threat Reduction Agency, accessed April 18, Binder One
• Defense Threat Reduction Agency, accessed April 18, PO19-6192[27] BIRe 
• USASPENDING.gov, accessed April 18, Contract summary
• U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, accessed April 18, Biological Threat Reduction Program

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