The U.S. Department of Energy revised its view on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which caused a global pandemic three years ago, now the agency believes the spread of COVID-19 was caused by a laboratory leak in China. This was reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the contents of the new classified US intelligence report.
“The new report summarizes how different sections of the US intelligence community are making judgments about the origin of the epidemic.
The Department of Energy agreed with the FBI, saying the virus was likely spread by an accident at a lab in China.
Previously, the US Department of Energy adhered to the natural source and natural transmission version of the coronavirus on the market in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.
It was clarified that the national intelligence group, along with four other agencies that are part of the intelligence community, still consider natural transmission of the virus to be the cause of the spread of COVID-19. Two more members of the community have yet to decide.
As the WSJ emphasizes, the US Department of Energy’s conclusions are particularly important because it is this agency that oversees the activities of the national network of biolaboratories that research viruses and biological weapons, among others. According to the latest intelligence, the ministry changed its mind.
Newspaper sources familiar with the classified document said they considered the lab leak to be the cause with “low degree of certainty”, although the Department of Energy changed its mind. At the same time, the FBI considers this version of the origin of the coronavirus since 2021 “moderate certainty.” Exactly what the new information in the intelligence report was was not specified in the publication. However, WSJ interlocutors noted that the Department of Energy and the FBI agreed for different reasons.
The newspaper’s sources declined to say which members of the US intelligence community considered natural contamination to be the cause of the outbreak. It is known that the CIA has not yet decided on its opinion.
An anonymous US intelligence interlocutor has confirmed the existence of an updated report on the origin of the coronavirus. According to him, the document was handed over to him and the White House, although it was not requested by Congress. At the same time, it is not yet known whether a declassified version of the report will be published.
Following the publication of the WSJ article, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that US intelligence has not yet reached a final conclusion about the origin of the coronavirus.
The theory that a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the spread of COVID-19 (which, among other things, they are studying SARS-type coronaviruses after the SARS outbreak in 2003) emerged in the early months of the pandemic. He has many supporters, he was actively promoted by former US President Donald Trump. At the same time, most supporters of the release agree that the leakage of the virus from the laboratory was unintentional and associated with violations of security regulations.
A joint group of scientists from the World Health Organization, after visiting Wuhan in the spring of 2021, said they considered this version unlikely. But later, WHO emphasized that they did not rule out the possibility of the virus leaking into the laboratory.
Beijing denies the version that the virology center in Wuhan was behind the spread of the disease. Since the beginning of 2021, the Chinese media has repeatedly written that the US military in the region in November 2019 may have brought the virus to China. This hypothesis was also expressed by Zhao Lijian, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC.
In December 2021, the Chinese government agency Xinhua published a report directly accusing the US of bringing COVID-19 to the country. The document provides both circumstantial evidence and direct facts that cast doubt on the Chinese origin of the coronavirus.
Specifically, he notes that antibodies to COVID-19 were detected on January 7, 2020, in an Illinois volunteer who had not traveled outside the country. Considering the antibody formation time, this proves that the volunteer contracted the disease in the first half of December 2019, a month before the first coronavirus infection in the United States was officially announced.
In addition, Chinese scientists, citing a study of 24,000 blood samples, state that with a 50% probability, the first coronavirus infections occurred in 12 northeastern states of the USA between August and October 2019.
Beijing calls the incident at the Fort Detrick military laboratory in Maryland (which studies the use of coronaviruses in combat) in July 2019 as another indirect evidence of its version – which was later shut down by the US military command due to alleged leaks. Immediately after that, several outbreaks of pneumonia of unknown etymology occurred around the laboratory, and their symptoms coincided with those of COVID-19. Then several dozen people became infected, at least two of them died.
In November 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that scientists at Boston University had created an artificial pathogen for coronavirus infection based on the Omicron strain and the original Wuhan variant. The lethality rate of the virus, developed by the Americans, has reached 80 percent, according to the military department. And antibodies fight 11 times worse than natural variants.