The United States Department of Energy (DOE) released an updated report this past week on the origins of the coronavirus outbreak, with the department now saying that the pandemic was a result of a leak in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2019. The report says that it has made this judgment with ‘low confidence,’ which means it has low certainty in its claim.
It joins the FBI in federal agencies that believe that the virus escaped from the lab (the FBI has ‘moderate confidence’ in this belief). Four other agencies believe that the pandemic was the result of natural transmission.
China has criticized the DOE report, with Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning claiming that the US is using the lab leak theory to score political points, rather than seek a scientific conclusion. She cited the previous WHO investigation, which had concluded that the virus was likely the result of natural transmission. The WHO’s report has also been criticized, with China accused of obstructing the organization’s investigation.
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