JUST IN: U.S. Dept. of Energy Reportedly Concludes Covid Most Likely Came From a Lab Leak

(Chinatopix via AP)

The U.S. Department of Energy has reportedly concluded that the Covid-19 outbreak most likely originated by way of a lab leak.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new finding was released in a classified report provided to the White House and key members of Congress. The Energy Department cited new intelligence as its reason for changing its conclusion.

The Department of Energy now joins the FBI, which has also held that Covid was the result of a lab leak. Four other government agencies and a national security panel dispute that assessment, believing that the outbreak began due to natural transmission. Two other agencies, including the CIA, remain undecided.

House Republicans have begun holding hearings exploring the origin of the pandemic, as well as the government response. The House Oversight and Accountability committee held its first proceeding on Feb. 1. In it, some Republicans questioned whether federal officials were too quick to dismiss the possibility that Covid was the product of a lab leak.

Dr. Anthony Fauci — the recently-retired face of the U.S. Covid response, who has been widely criticized by Republicans in Congress — has said that he believes natural spread is responsible for the outbreak. But he’s left the door open on the lab leak theory.

“If you look at the data that’s been accumulated by independent international evolutionary virologists, they feel pretty confident that this was a natural occurrence from an animal host into a human,” Fauci told Chris Wallace in December. “Has it been definitively proven? No. Is a lab leak possible? Of course, I keep a completely open mind that we don’t know definitively what the origin is. And that’s the reason why we want to keep investigating and get as much data as we can, so that we can prevent something like this from happening in the future. But the overwhelming data right now from independent people, with no horse in the race, feel rather strongly that it’s a natural occurrence.”