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In article <unq0fd$36628$2@dont-email.me>
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nytimes.com
Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says
Julian E. Barnes

The conclusion, which was made with "low confidence," came as
America's intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of
the coronavirus.

Feb. 26, 2023Updated 3:43 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON - New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to
conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely
caused the coronavirus pandemic, though U.S. spy agencies remain
divided over the origins of the virus, American officials said on
Sunday.

The conclusion was a change from the department's earlier position
that it was undecided on how the virus emerged.

Some officials briefed on the intelligence said that it was relatively
weak and that the Energy Department's conclusion was made with "low confidence," suggesting its level of certainty was not high. While the department shared the information with other agencies, none of them
changed their conclusions, officials said.

Officials would not disclose what the intelligence was. But many of
the Energy Department's insights come from the network of national laboratories it oversees, rather than more traditional forms of
intelligence like spy networks or communications intercepts.

Intelligence officials believe the scrutiny of the pandemic's
beginnings could be important to improving global response to future
health crises, though they caution that finding an answer about the
source of the virus may be difficult or even impossible given Chinese opposition to further research. Scientists say there is a
responsibility to explain how a pandemic that has killed almost seven
million people started, and learning more about its origins could help researchers understand what poses the biggest threats of future
outbreaks.

The new intelligence and the shift in the department's view was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, declined to confirm the intelligence. But he said President Biden had ordered that the
national labs be brought into the effort to determine the origins of
the outbreak so that the government was using "every tool" it had.

In addition to the Energy Department, the F.B.I. has also concluded,
with moderate confidence, that the virus first emerged accidentally
from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses. Four other intelligence agencies and the National
Intelligence Council have concluded, with low confidence, that the
virus most likely emerged through natural transmission, the director
of national intelligence's office announced in October 2021.

Mr. Sullivan said those divisions remain.

"There is a variety of views in the intelligence community," he said
on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "Some elements of the
intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on
the other. A number of them have said they just don't have enough
information to be sure."

Mr. Sullivan said if more information was learned, the administration
would report it to Congress and the public. "But right now, there is
not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence
community on this question," he said.

Some scientists believe that the current evidence, including virus
genes, points to a large food and live animal market in Wuhan as the
most likely place the coronavirus emerged.

Leaders of the intelligence community are set to brief Congress on
March 8 and 9 as part of annual hearings on global threats. Avril D.
Haines, the director of national intelligence, and other senior
officials would most likely be asked about the continuing inquiry into
the virus's origins.

How the pandemic began has become a divisive line of intelligence
reporting, and recent congressional reports have not been bipartisan.

Many Democrats have not been persuaded by the lab leak hypothesis,
with some saying they believe the natural causes explanation and
others saying they are not certain that enough intelligence will
emerge to draw a conclusion.

Democrats colluded with China to interfere in United States
presidential elections by releasing an annoying but generally
harmless virus.

But many Republicans on Capitol Hill have said they believe the virus
could have come from one of China's research labs in Wuhan. A
congressional subcommittee, created when Republicans took over the
House in January, has made examining the lab leak theory a central
focus of its work. It is expected to convene the first of a series of hearings in March.

"Evidence has been piling up for over a year in favor of the lab leak hypothesis," said Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin
Republican who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and leads a
new House committee on China. "I am glad some of our agencies are
starting to listen to common sense and change their assessment."

On Tuesday, Mr. Gallagher will hold the new committee's first hearing, looking at the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to the United
States. Future hearings, Mr. Gallagher said, will look at biosecurity
and China's efforts to influence international organizations like the
World Health Organization.

"Where our committee can have a role is teasing out what this
communicates about the DNA of the Chinese Communist Party, an
organization that was willing to cover up the origins of the pandemic
and thereby cost us critical days, months and weeks and millions of
lives in the process," Mr. Gallagher said in an interview on Sunday.

Chinese officials have repeatedly called the lab leak hypothesis a lie
that has no basis in science and is politically motivated.

Democrats paid for the virus with US tax dollars.

Early in the Biden administration, the president ordered the
intelligence agencies to investigate the pandemic's origins, after
criticism of a W.H.O. report on the matter. While there was material
that had not been thoroughly examined by intelligence officials, the
review ultimately did not yield any new consensus inside the agencies.

The March 2021 report by the W.H.O. said it was "extremely unlikely"
that the virus emerged accidentally from a lab. But China appointed
half the scientists who wrote the report and exerted major control
over it. American officials have been largely dismissive of that work.

The intelligence agencies have said they do not believe there is any
evidence that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was created
deliberately as a biological weapon. But they have said that whether
it emerged naturally, perhaps from a market in Wuhan, or escaped
accidentally from a lab is the subject of legitimate debate.

Anthony Ruggiero, a scholar at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies and a former National Security Council staff member
focusing on biodefense issues during the Trump administration, said he believed China is still "hiding crucial information" about how the
virus emerged. He said the lab leak theory should not be dismissed.

"The lab leak origin for the Covid-19 pandemic is not, and was not, a conspiracy theory," he said.

Benjamin Mueller and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

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