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K – so the Department of Energy has joined the FBI in determining that the virus was a lab escape. Wait – what? According to the WSJ, the FBI MAY HAVE MADE THAT ASSESSMENT IN 2021! Who knew?
The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.
The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.
The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided
I must have been sleeping under rock – I did not realize that the intelligence community had been communicating that the origin could have been a lab leak since August 2021. With four IC “elements” concluding with LOW confidence that it was of natural origin, and one IC “element” with MODERATE confidence that it came from a lab.
