Chinese officials have repeatedly called the lab leak hypothesis a lie that is politically motivated. Read more at straitstimes.com.
WASHINGTON – New intelligence has prompted the US Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, although US spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, US officials said on Sunday.
Officials would not disclose what the intelligence was. But many of the Energy Department’s insights come from the network of national laboratories it oversees, rather than more traditional forms of intelligence like spy networks or communications intercepts. The new intelligence and the shift in the department’s view was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
At least four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded, with low confidence, that the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission, the director of national intelligence’s office announced in October 2021.“There is a variety of views in the intelligence community,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other.
Early in the Biden administration, the president ordered the intelligence agencies to investigate the pandemic’s origins, after criticism of a WHO report on the matter. While there was material that had not been thoroughly examined by intelligence officials, the review ultimately did not yield any new consensus inside the agencies.
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