(2023-02-26) A Lab Leak In China Most Likely Origin Of Covid Pandemic Energy Department Says

A Lab Leak in China Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department says. The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin.

The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided

The Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence,”

The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence” and still holds to this view.

while the Energy Department and the FBI each say an unintended lab leak is most likely, they arrived at those conclusions for different reasons.

Despite the agencies’ differing analyses, the update reaffirmed an existing consensus between them that Covid-19 wasn’t the result of a Chinese biological-weapons program

China, which has placed limits on investigations by the World Health Organization, has disputed that the virus could have leaked from one of its labs and has suggested it emerged outside China.