The U.S. Department of Energy has concluded that the coronavirus outbreak was most likely caused by a laboratory leak, according to a recently classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress.
An update to a 2021 document from the office of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines mentioned the shift at the Department of Energy. The Energy Department has previously been inconclusive on how the virus emerged.
The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community came to wildly different conclusions about the outbreak’s origins. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, in believing the virus may have spread through an accident in a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence group, still believe the virus may have been the result of natural transmission, and two have not reached a conclusion.
The Department of Energy’s conclusions, based on new intelligence, are significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.
The Energy Department’s level of confidence in that judgment is low, according to people who have read the classified report.
The FBI previously concluded in 2021 that the outbreak was likely the result of a laboratory leak, with moderate confidence in that judgment. The agency still stands by that view.
The FBI employs a cadre of microbiologists, immunologists and other scientists, with support from the National Bioforensic Analysis Center, which opened at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in 2004 Formed to analyze anthrax and other possible biological threats.
U.S. officials did not disclose details of the new intelligence and analysis that led to the Energy Department’s change of position. While both the Energy Department and the FBI said an accidental leak from the lab was the most likely cause, they differed in their reasons for reaching those conclusions, they said.
The updated documents highlight how intelligence officials are still trying to figure out how the new coronavirus emerged. More than 1 million Americans have died in the outbreak that began more than three years ago.
The National Intelligence Council, which conducts long-term strategic analysis, and four agencies assessed the claim that the virus arose naturally through infected animals as having “low confidence,” according to the updated report. Officials declined to name the quadruple agencies.
People who have read the classified report say the Central Intelligence Agency and another agency, whose officials spoke on condition of anonymity, are still torn between the theory of a laboratory leak and natural transmission.
People who have read the classified report said that while the agencies’ analyzes differed, the updated report reiterated the existing consensus among the agencies that the new coronavirus did not originate from China’s biological weapons program.
A senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed that the intelligence community had previously conducted the update. This update has not been reported before. The official said the update was based on new intelligence, further research into the academic literature and consultations with experts outside the government.
The update, which is less than five pages long, was not requested by Congress. But members of Congress, particularly Republicans in the House and Senate, are conducting their own investigations into the origins of the virus and pressing the Biden administration and the intelligence community for more information.
U.S. officials did not say whether an unclassified version of the update would be released.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did not confirm or deny the Wall Street Journal report in an interview with CNN on Sunday. He said that President Biden has repeatedly instructed all parts of the intelligence community to devote energy to trying to understand as much as possible about the origin of the new crown.
“President Biden specifically asked those national labs that are part of the Department of Energy to be part of this assessment because he wants to put in all the tools to be able to figure out what’s going on,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan said the intelligence community has a variety of viewpoints. “Some of them have indicated that there is not enough information,” he said.
Asked about the Energy Department’s latest assessment, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, said on NBC Sunday that Congress needed to hold broad hearings on the origins of the coronavirus, adding that China had sought to threaten other countries. , to prevent them from questioning whether the new coronavirus is a natural occurrence. “This is a country that doesn’t mind coming out and lying to the world,” he said.
According to the 2021 US intelligence report, the novel coronavirus first spread in Wuhan, China no later than November 2019. The origins of the coronavirus pandemic have been the subject of intense debate among academics, intelligence experts and lawmakers.
The outbreak has heightened tensions between the United States and China, with U.S. officials saying China withheld information about the outbreak. There has also been a fierce, sometimes partisan debate in the United States over the origin of the new crown epidemic. At first, the mainstream view was that the new coronavirus was likely to be naturally occurring, and the virus jumped from animals to humans, as has happened in past cases. But as time passed and no animal reservoirs were found, concerns grew about coronavirus research in Wuhan, and the possibility of accidental laboratory leaks.
Stanford University microbiologist David Relman, who has advocated for a dispassionate investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, welcomed the latest findings.
Relman, who has served on several federal science advisory boards, said, “Those who are willing to put aside their preconceptions and objectively re-examine what we know and don’t know about the origin of the new crown epidemic are commendable; my request is that we do not accept a Incomplete answers, and don’t give up because of political expediency.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy declined to discuss details of the assessment, but wrote in a statement that the agency “continues to support our intelligence professionals in their full, careful, and objective work in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as directed by the President.” “.
The FBI declined to comment.
China has dismissed claims that the new coronavirus may have leaked from a domestic laboratory and suggested it emerged outside the country. China has restricted investigations by the World Health Organization.
The Chinese government did not respond to a request for comment on whether there has been any change in China’s views on the origin of the new crown.
Some scientists believe that the new coronavirus may have arisen naturally and spread to humans through animals, which is the same route as outbreaks of previously unknown pathogens.
According to the 2021 report, intelligence analysts backing this view highlighted “precedents of past zoonotic outbreaks of novel infectious diseases” and, combined with a thriving trade in a variety of animals susceptible to such infections, they This leads to the conclusion that Chinese officials had no prior knowledge of the novel coronavirus.
But so far, people have not been able to determine the source of animal infection of the new coronavirus. The lack of an animal source of infection, combined with the fact that Wuhan is the center of China’s massive coronavirus research, has prompted some scientists and U.S. officials to argue that the outbreak most likely originated in a lab leak.
According to 2018 U.S. State Department cables and internal Chinese documents, concerns about the safety of Chinese biological programs have persisted, and supporters of the “lab leak theory” have also mentioned this issue.
Wuhan is home to a string of laboratories, many of which were built or expanded after China’s 2002 SARS outbreak. These laboratories include the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, which produces the vaccine.
An outbreak at a seafood market in Wuhan was initially thought to be the origin of the novel coronavirus, but some scientists and Chinese public health officials now believe the Wuhan seafood market was just an example of community transmission, not the original one, according to the 2021 intelligence circle report. places of human infection.
In May 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden directed the intelligence community to step up efforts to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus, directing the assessment to draw on the work of U.S. national laboratories and other agencies. Congress will be briefed on the situation, he said.
The October 2021 report stated that there is a consensus that the new coronavirus is not the result of China’s biological weapons program. But the report did not resolve the debate over whether the virus leaked from a laboratory or from animals, saying more information was needed from Chinese authorities.
The U.S. intelligence community is made up of 18 agencies, including several offices in the Departments of Energy, State and Treasury. Eight of those agencies participated in the COVID-19 origin assessment along with the National Intelligence Council.
The report followed a May 2020 study compiled by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory concluding that the lab leak hypothesis seemed plausible and worthwhile. Further investigation.
The U.S. received intelligence that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had been hospitalized, sparking debate over whether the new coronavirus could have leaked from the lab.
A report by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee last year concluded that the information neither strengthened evidence of a laboratory leak nor supported the theory of a natural source that the researchers may also have caught the seasonal flu. But some former U.S. officials say the ill researchers were involved in coronavirus research.
Lawmakers have sought to gain more support for the FBI’s conclusion that the new coronavirus may have originated from a laboratory leak. In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Aug. 1 last year, Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., asked the FBI to share its investigative records and asked whether the bureau briefed Biden on its findings.
In a Nov. 18 letter, Assistant FBI Director Jill Tyson said the FBI could not release those details because of Justice Department policy in protecting the “integrity of ongoing investigations.” She directed the senator to ask Haynes’ office what briefings were scheduled for Biden.
(update completed)