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According to The Wall Street Journal, new information has led the Energy Department to conclude that the novel coronavirus pandemic was most likely caused by an accidental laboratory leak in China (WSJ).
The shift by the Energy Department, which was previously undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ office.
The conclusion differed from the department’s previous position that it was unsure how the virus emerged, according to the WSJ.
The Congress did not request the update, which is only five pages long. However, lawmakers, particularly House and Senate Republicans, are conducting their own investigations into the pandemic’s origins and pressing the Biden administration and the intelligence community for more information.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Energy Department has joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in claiming that the virus most likely spread due to a mishap at a Chinese laboratory.
The conclusion reached by the Energy Department is the result of new intelligence, and it is significant because the agency has significant scientific expertise and oversees a network of US national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.
The information collected by the Energy Department comes from its network of national labs, some of which carry out biological research, rather than from more conventional sources like spy networks or communications intercepts.
The FBI previously concluded, with “moderate confidence,” that the pandemic in 2021 was most likely caused by a lab leak. The FBI continues to hold this opinion.
The FBI and the Energy Department both believe that an unintentional lab leak is the most probable reason for the pandemic, according to US officials, but they came to those conclusions for various reasons.
In the updated paper, it is made clear that intelligence officials are still piecing together the circumstances surrounding Covid-19’s emergence. The epidemic, which started more than three years ago, has claimed more than one million American lives, according to the WSJ.
The finding, according to the WSJ, was reached with “low confidence” and came as the American intelligence agencies continued to disagree about the coronavirus’s origins.
Four additional organizations, including a national intelligence council, continue to hold the view that a natural transmission of the pandemic most likely occurred, while two other organizations are still unsure.
The individuals who have read the secret report claim that the Central Intelligence Agency and another agency, which officials declined to name, are still undecided between the lab-leak and natural-transmission theories.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refrained from confirming or disputing the Journal’s story. He claimed that President Biden had repeatedly ordered the intelligence agency to make every effort to learn as much as possible about the causes of the pandemic.
President Biden requested explicitly that the national labs, which are a part of the Energy Department, be included in this assessment because he wants to use all available resources to determine what went wrong, according to Sullivan.
The US 2021 intelligence assessment states that the Covid-19 virus first spread in Wuhan, China, no later than November 2019. Academics, intelligence professionals, and legislators have all vigorously debated the pandemic’s origin.
The pandemic’s emergence increased hostilities between the US and China, which US authorities accused of hiding information about the outbreak. In the US, it also sparked a passionate and occasionally partisan discussion about its genesis.
The virus may not have come from one of China’s laboratories, according to China, which has restricted the World Health Organization’s investigations, and it may have originated elsewhere.
Requests for feedback regarding whether or not the Chinese government has changed its opinion regarding the Covid-19’s genesis went unanswered.
However, given that Wuhan is the hub of China’s extensive coronavirus research, some scientists and US government representatives contend that a lab leak is the most plausible reason for the outbreak of the pandemic.
As a result of China’s traumatic experience with the initial severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, epidemic starting in 2002, Wuhan is home to a variety of laboratories, many of which were constructed or expanded.
Campuses of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which develops medicines, are among them.
