Lab leak most likely origin of pandemic, says US
THE Covid-19 pandemic is most likely to have originated from a laboratory leak, a US government department has concluded.
The study carried out on behalf of the US energy department is considered authoritative, as it oversees a network of 17 laboratories encompassing research in advanced biology.
It comes after the Federal Bureau of Investigation also blamed a leak from a Chinese laboratory for the pandemic.
Since the start, there has been speculation that Covid-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, which had been collecting and manipulating bat viruses.
Four other agencies in the US still believe that the pandemic was the result of natural transmission, and two others are undecided, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the energy department findings.
It is understood that one of the agencies that remains undecided is the CIA. Asked about the latest report on CNN yesterday, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, admitted there were a variety of views held by the US intelligence community on the origins of the pandemic.
He said: “Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other, and a number have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”
He added that the Biden administration had “directed repeatedly every element of our intelligence community to put effort and resources on getting to the bottom of this question. “Right now there is not a definitive answer to emerge from the intelligence community on this question.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the energy department has reached its conclusion with “low confidence”.
However, it does conclude that suggestions Covid-19 was part of a Chinese biological weapons programme
were unfounded. In 2021 the FBI said it had “moderate confidence” that the pandemic was caused by an accidental leak from a Chinese laboratory. It is understood the agency still holds that view.
Other theories centre on wet food markets in Wuhan and the belief that animals could have passed it to humans.
Among others who have attributed the pandemic to an accidental leak from a Chinese laboratory is Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency. In a 2020 interview, he said he had seen a scientific report by a British-norwegian team indicating that the virus was man-made.
It emerged earlier this month that an investigation into the origins of Covid19 has been quietly shelved by the World Health Organisation (WHO). An initial inquiry by WHO concluded in 2021 that it emerged from an animal spillover event, but it was later shown that investigators had been forced to report a lab leak was unlikely to avoid arguments with China.
In the US the origins of the pandemic – which claimed nearly 7 million lives globally – have been politicised with many Republicans insisting that blame rested with the Chinese. The findings will intensify pressure on the Biden administration to take a stronger line with China.