Although there is still no consensus on the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak, the U.S. Department of Energy has assessed that COVID-19 is most likely to have originated from a Chinese laboratory leak, according to a classified report submitted to the U.S. House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
The U.S. Department of Energy had previously said it wasn’t sure where the COVID-19 pandemic spread from, but that view changed after receiving “new intelligence, further research in the academic literature, and consultations with experts outside the government,” according to the Wall Street Journal. a major shift.
While the assessment was tagged with “low confidence,” suggesting officials were in the dark about what happened, the DOE is actually the second U.S. federal agency to conclude the pandemic originated from a laboratory leak, after the previous one. For the FBI, which maintains this view with “some confidence.”
The intelligence community has expressed many views on the origin of COVID-19, and while many support the possibility of a virus leak from a Chinese laboratory, many in the scientific community believe that COVID-19 may be the result of natural zoonotic transmission.
(Source of the first image:Pixabay）