The lab leak is back in the news as a U.S. intelligence agency alters its assessment to state that the coronavirus
likely originated from a laboratory leak.
The Department of Energy Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence is considered authoritative by many as it is involved in biological threats, overseeing a network of 17 laboratories encompassing research in advanced biology, as well as in managing the safety of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
The
Wall Street Journal reports that
the agency's new assessment was made with "low confidence", according to people who have read the classified report.
The FBI is the only other U.S. intelligence agency to conclude that the lab leak is the most likely scenario. A
report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassified in October 2021 stated that "one IC [Intelligence Community] element assesses with moderate confidence that COVID-19 most likely resulted from a laboratory associated incident involving WIV or other researchers — either through exposure to the virus during experiments or through sampling". This element was subsequently identified by the
New York Times as the FBI.
U.S. officials on Monday declined to give details on the fresh intelligence and analysis that led the Energy Department to change its position. They added that
while the Energy Department and the FBI each says an unintended lab leak is most likely, they arrived at those conclusions for different reasons.Four other agencies in the U.S. still believe that the pandemic was a result of natural zoonotic spillover and two others are undecided, according to the
Wall Street Journal. One of the agencies that remains undecided is understood to be the CIA.
Asked about the latest report on CNN on Sunday, Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser, acknowledged that a variety of views are held by the U.S. intelligence community on the origins of the pandemic.
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... Right now there is not a definitive answer to emerge from the intelligence community.
Gilles Demaneuf of DRASTIC
spotted back in December that a footnote to the
report by the House Intelligence Committee on the Intelligence Community's response to the COVID-19 outbreak noted that
at least one intelligence agency had revised its assessment since the above-mentioned 'Biden report' that was declassified in October 2021.
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