According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the US Energy Department stated that COVID-19 is likely to have spread due to a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. The information reportedly came from a classified intelligence report given to the White House and members of Congress.
The Energy Department had previously stated that it was uncertain about how the virus emerged, but it has now shifted its stance. NBC News also reported that the Energy Department has concluded with “low confidence” that the pandemic started due to a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many in the media have dismissed claims that COVID-19 came from a lab in Wuhan, China, as misinformation. However, the classified report cited by NBC News says that the consensus was that COVID-19 was not the result of a bioweapon, but that the leak was an “accident.”
“I’m 100% CONVINCED that the virus was made in the Wuhan lab,” said Ronny Jackson, a physician and US Congressman from Texas, on Twitter. “We’re going to uncover the cover-up. We’re going to find out how tied Fauci was to funding this. We’re going to find out EVERYTHING about the origins of Covid!!”
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases until he retired at the end of 2022, told NBC’s “Meet The Press” in November 2022 that he had a “completely open mind” about the origin of COVID-19. He said that respected virologists had strong evidence the virus jumped from animals to humans.
Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight that does opinion poll analysis, criticized the suppression of discussion on whether COVID originated from a lab. “The behavior of a certain cadre of scientists who used every trick in the book to suppress discussion of this issue is something I’ll never forget,” Silver tweeted. “A huge disservice to science and public health. They should be profoundly embarrassed.”
