According to a media report, the US Department of Energy has changed its assessment of the origin of the corona virus and is now assuming possible laboratory failure. That emerges from a classified intelligence report recently submitted to the White House and key members of Congress, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing unnamed sources.
The Department of Energy now agrees with the FBI’s assessment that the virus was likely spread through a fault in a Chinese laboratory. However, the ministry assumes this with only 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”, emphasized Sullivan, referring to the origin of the virus. “Some parts of the intelligence community have come to conclusions on the one hand, others have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”
Some US officials continue to believe the virus was likely naturally transmitted, others are undecided. The Department of Energy’s conclusion is based on new evidence, according to the report. However, it was not clear what these findings were. Previously, the department was undecided in its assessment, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Like other US departments, the ministry has its own Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, which is part of the US intelligence community. These trace the origin of the coronavirus.
In 2021, after several months of 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 man remains to be seen, according to a report published at the time, in which the intelligence departments of various agencies published their assessments. China has always denied allegations of a possible lab accident.