Return of “Wuhan Lab Leak”

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Excerpt from “Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says,” a 2.26 N.Y. Times story by Julien E. Barnes, based on a 2.26 Wall Street Journal story by Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel:

“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.

“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.

“Officials would not disclose what the intelligence was. But many of the Energy Department’s insights come from its network of national laboratories, some of which conduct biological research, rather than more traditional forms of intelligence like spy networks or communications intercepts.”

On 6.3.21, The Independent‘s Adam Forrest posted a story titled “Covid: Former MI6 chief says any Wuhan lab leak evidence has likely been destroyed“:

“Any evidence of a lab leak that may have caused the Covid-19 pandemic would likely have been destroyed by Chinese officials by now, a former MI6 chief has claimed.

‘Sir Richard Dearlove said it would now be difficult to prove that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on ‘gain of function’ experiments to make a novel coronavirus.

“’We don’t know what’s happened,’ Dearlove said, but ‘a lot of data have probably been destroyed or made to disappear so it’s going to be difficult to prove definitely the case for a ‘gain of function chimera’ being the cause of the pandemic.”