Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that the new crown outbreak may have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, publicly confirming for the first time the FBI’s knowledge of the epidemic that has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide. Confidential determination of the source of the outbreak.
“The FBI has assessed for a long time that the novel coronavirus most likely originated from a possible laboratory accident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News. “It may have been a leak in a laboratory controlled by the Chinese government.”
Lei said that the Chinese government has been trying to “obstruct” the FBI, other departments of the U.S. government and foreign partners in the investigation of the origin of the new crown and “confuse the public,” but the FBI’s work is still advancing.
The FBI reached the conclusion in 2021 with “moderate confidence” that the coronavirus outbreak may have been a laboratory accident, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Leaked results, and still stand by that view.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that the U.S. Department of Energy now also believes the outbreak likely stemmed from an accidental laboratory leak. The Department of Energy reached this conclusion based on new intelligence with a “low confidence” level, which differs from the Department’s position in 2021 when it believed the origin of the new crown was inconclusive.
The aforementioned assessments by the FBI and Energy Department were included in a classified report to the White House and some lawmakers earlier this year.
Four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council, which conducts long-term strategic analysis, still prefer to believe that the new coronavirus emerged during the transmission from animals to humans, although the level of confidence in that judgment is assessed at ” B”. Officials did not disclose the names of the four intelligence agencies.
People who have read the classified report say the CIA and another agency are still undecided about the merits of the laboratory leak versus natural transmission. Officials did not explicitly name another agency.
People with knowledge of the contents of the classified report said the agencies agreed that the coronavirus was not the product of a biological weapons program.
China has pushed back on claims that the new coronavirus may have leaked from a domestic laboratory and suggested it emerged outside the country.
“Tracing the origin of the new coronavirus is a scientific issue and should not be politicized,” Mao Ning, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, told a news conference on Monday.
“The key thing is that we have to find out why,” said U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. .”
The FBI hired microbiologists, immunologists and other scientists to investigate. The FBI funds and manages the National Bioforensic Analysis Center, which was established at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in 2004 to analyze possible biological threats.
The scientists, like the FBI’s agents and analysts, “are paying particular attention to the dangers of biological threats, including novel viruses like the new coronavirus, and the In the hands of bad actors, hostile states, terrorists and criminals, there is concern that they could pose a threat.”
The U.S. Department of Energy oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research. The Department of Energy’s “Z Unit” at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California analyzes adversary nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs and provides support to the U.S. intelligence community.
The new report from the intelligence community updates an assessment spearheaded in 2021 by the office of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
Some scientists believe that, like other previously unknown pathogens that infect humans, the virus must have arisen in nature, likely from China’s massive and largely unregulated wildlife trade.
But now that more time has passed and no animal host has been found, scientists are increasingly concerned about the potential risks of Wuhan coronavirus research and the possibility of accidental leaks.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that President Joe Biden supports “a whole-of-government effort” to try to unravel the spread of COVID-19. The puzzle of the epidemic.
“We’re just not there yet; if we have information that we can communicate to the American people and Congress, we will,” he said.