US Energy department and FBI agree on Lab leak

US Energy department, pandemic is most likely to have originated from a lab leak

https://nypost.com/2023/02/26/chinese-lab-leak-likely-behind-covid-19-outbreak/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/26/covid-19-lab-leak-us-energy-department-concludes/

Oversees a network of 17 laboratories, research in advanced biology

Overseas biodefence labs

Oversees US nuclear weapons program

Based on new intelligence,

additional study of academic literature,

and consultation with experts outside government

The Covid-19 pandemic is most likely to have originated from a lab leak

Accidental leak

low confidence

(In 2021, FBI had moderate confidence in a lab leak)

Covid-19 was part of a Chinese biological weapons programme, unfounded

FBI chief Christopher Wray says China lab leak most likely

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64806903

FBI Director Christopher Wray

The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident

China has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate

efforts to identify the source of the global pandemic.

Details of the agency's investigation were classified

(FBI has a team of experts focusing on the dangers of biological threats)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/02/26/timeline-how-the-covid-lab-leak-origin-story-went-from-conspiracy-theory-to-government-debate/?sh=2b29102737b9

March 7, 2020
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext

A group that has been involved in China at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which some saw as a conflict of interest

The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins.

We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.

17th March, 2020, Patrick Vallance shuts down debate

UK experts helped shut down Covid lab leak theory

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/23/uk-experts-helped-shut-covid-lab-leak-theory-weeks-told-might/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/23/uk-experts-helped-shut-covid-lab-leak-theory-weeks-told-might/

https://www.nature.com/articles/S41591-020-0820-9

Natural spillover event caused the pandemic,

was hugely instrumental in stifling debate into the origins of the virus.

By the time the paper was published,

all reference to biosecurity problems in Wuhan had been removed

April 18, 2020, President Trump

a lot of people are looking into the possibility of a lab leak, the theory seems to make sense

Dr. Anthony Fauci

the virus’ mutations are consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.

4th June, 2020, Sir Richard Dearlove, former head, MI6

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-chinese-laboratory-wuhan-mi6-richard-dearlove-conspiracy-theories-a9547851.html

Seen a scientific report by a British-Norwegian team indicating that the virus was man-made

January 15, 2021

https://2017-2021.state.gov/fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhan-institute-of-virology/index.html

State Department fact sheet

Some researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

became sick in fall 2019, three researchers were hospitalized before the first coronavirus case was reported.

February 9, 2021 World Health Organization team

the possibility that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan extremely unlikely

February 9, 2021

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2

Close relative of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats in Thailand, China and Laos