The COVID-19 pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified report recently provided to the White House and several members of Congress.
The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified report recently provided to the White House and several members of Congress.
Previously, the Energy Department was undecided on the pandemic’s origins. The new information appeared as an update to a classified 2021 report by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.
The U.S. intelligence community has yet to form a consensus on how the pandemic started. The FBI and the Energy Department favor the lab leak theory while four other intelligence agencies believe in the zoonotic transmission theory. Two agencies are undecided.
The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.
