The US Department of Energy has concluded that the COVID-19 virus most likely originated from a ChiCom government laboratory in Wuhan, China, the Wall Street Journal reports in an “exclusive.”
The Department of Energy came to the conclusion based on new intelligence and “is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of US national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research,” according to the Journal, which we copied verbatim to relay to readers who would understandably be pretty skeptical as to why the Energy Department would have any expertise in something obviously not energy-related.
The Journal describes the conclusion as “low confidence,” but one the FBI in 2021 reached with “moderate confidence.” The two agencies are the only ones with any confidence about the virus’s origin having come from a laboratory. The National Intelligence Council rates natural transmission from an infected animal with low confidence, while the CIA is undecided between natural and lab-based transmission. No further details about the updated intel were available to the Journal.