COVID-19 pandemic likely came from Chinese lab leak, US department now says in classified documents

The COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a Chinese lab leak, the U.S. Department of Energy has reportedly concluded.

According to a classified intelligence report recently supplied to the White House and key members of Congress, a leak from a Chinese laboratory is the likely origin of the COVID pandemic.

The Wall Street Journal reported, "The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory."

The WSJ stated, "The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research."

The report – which is reportedly less than five pages – noted that the Department of Energy made the determination with "low confidence." In 2021, the FBI reportedly concluded that COVID escaped to the public through a lab leak. The FBI made its judgment with "moderate confidence."

The U.S. agencies allegedly clarified that COVID-19 escaped from a lab, and was not part of a Chinese biological weapons program.

Meanwhile, four other U.S. government agencies suspect that the coronavirus pandemic was most likely the result of natural transmission. Two other agencies – including the CIA – have yet to establish where the deadly pandemic originated.

David Relman – a Stanford University microbiologist – told the WSJ, "Kudos to those who are willing to set aside their preconceptions and objectively re-examine what we know and don’t know about COVID origins. My plea is that we not accept an incomplete answer or give up because of political expediency.”

A spokesperson for the Energy Department spokesman did not confirm or deny the report, but said the agency "continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed."

The initial explanation for the COVID-19 pandemic was that the virus originated from a wet market in Wuhan, China. Many believe that the virus mutated and was able to jump from animals to humans. However, the animal source was never actually identified.

Since the pandemic began, there have been many who suspect that COVID-19 may have possibly escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China – a Chinese laboratory that studies coronaviruses and has the highest biosafety risk level.

The WSJ highlighted, "Wuhan is home to an array of laboratories, many of which were built or expanded as a result of China’s traumatic experience with the initial severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, epidemic beginning in 2002. They include campuses of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, which produces vaccines."

The lab leak theory has been dismissed by top health officials, major media outlets, and influential politicians. The idea that COVID came from a lab has been disregarded as a conspiracy theory. Some even claimed that just proposing the lab leak theory is racist.

In January, a group of national security experts slammed the New York Times and other legacy media outlets for dismissing the lab leak theory.

Big tech previously censored the lab leak theory, and punished and even banned social media users who questioned the origin of COVID.

In early 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci – the government’s top infectious diseases expert – along with other top health officials pushed messaging that a "laboratory-based scenario" is not plausible, and anyone suggesting otherwise is likely a conspiracy theorist.

Fauci told National Geographic in May 2020:

If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.

In May 2021, Fauci admitted that he wasn't "convinced" that COVID was caused by natural transmission.

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