According to a media report, the U.S. Department of Energy has changed its assessment of the origin of the coronavirus and is now assuming a possible lab error.
This is according to a classified intelligence report recently presented to the White House and key members of Congress, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday citing unnamed sources.
The Department of Energy now joins the FBI’s assessment of the Federal Police, according to which the virus probably spread through a malfunction in a Chinese laboratory. However, the ministry assumes this with a “low” degree of certainty.
US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday he could neither confirm nor deny the report. “At the moment there is no definitive answer from the Secret Services to this question,” Sullivan stressed, referring to the origin of the virus.
Some US authorities remain of the opinion that the virus was likely transmitted naturally, others are undecided. The Department of Energy’s conclusion is based on new evidence, according to the report. However, it remained unclear what these findings were. According to the Wall Street Journal, the ministry was rather undecided in its assessment.
Like other U.S. departments, the Department has its own Intelligence and Counterintelligence Office, which is part of the U.S. intelligence community. These trace the origin of the coronavirus.
In 2021, after several months of close scrutiny, there was no agreement among US intelligence agencies on the origin of the coronavirus. Whether the virus came from a laboratory or jumped from an animal to humans is unclear, according to a report published at the time in which the intelligence services of various authorities made their estimates.
China has always denied allegations of a possible lab accident.
The lack of an animal source of the virus and the fact that Wuhan is the center of China’s extensive coronavirus research has led some scientists and US officials to argue that a laboratory malfunction is the best explanation for the Covid pandemic.
(dsc/sda)
source: watson
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