WASHINGTON — Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and health agencies around the world have been unable to answer a critical question: Did the virus originate in animals or leak from a Chinese lab?

According to a person familiar with the report who was not authorized to discuss it, the US Department of Energy has assessed with "low confidence" that it began with a lab leak. The report has not been made available to the public.

Others in the US intelligence community, however, disagree.

"There is currently no agreement in the US government about how COVID began," said John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, on Monday. "There is simply no agreement among intelligence agencies."

The DOE's conclusion was first reported in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, which stated that the classified report was based on new intelligence and noted in an update to a 2021 document. The DOE is in charge of a nationwide network of laboratories.

On Monday, White House officials declined to confirm press reports about the assessment.

In 2021, officials released an intelligence report summary in which they stated that four members of the US intelligence community had low confidence that the virus was first transmitted from an animal to a human, and a fifth had moderate confidence that the first human infection was linked to a lab.

While some scientists support the lab-leak theory, others believe the virus originated in animals, mutated, and then jumped into humans, as viruses have done in the past. According to experts, the true cause of the pandemic may not be discovered for many years, if ever.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the United States declined to comment on the report. The United States has 18 offices.

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, said she's not sure what new intelligence the agencies had, but "it's reasonable to infer" it relates to activities at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

According to her, a 2018 research proposal co-authored by scientists there and their U. "Within less than two years, such a virus was causing an outbreak in the city," she explained.

The Wuhan institute had been researching coronaviruses for years, in part due to widespread fears dating back to SARS, that coronaviruses could be the source of the next pandemic. No intelligence agency has said they believe the coronavirus that caused COVID-19 was released intentionally.

"A lot of people don't hear about lab accidents because they're not discussed publicly," said Chan, who co-wrote a book about the search for COVID-19 origins. Such incidents "underline the importance of making work with highly dangerous pathogens more transparent and accountable." The World Health Organization recommended a more thorough investigation into a possible lab accident last year. Chan expressed her hope that the latest report will prompt further investigation in the United States.

Many scientists believe the coronavirus is transmitted from animal to human. According to a 2021 study published in the journal Cell, the COVID-19 virus is the ninth documented coronavirus to infect humans, and all of the previous ones originated in animals.

Two studies published in the journal Science last year supported the animal origin theory. Scientists concluded that the virus likely spread from animals to humans twice. "The scientific literature contains essentially nothing but original research articles that support a natural origin of this virus pandemic," said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who has extensively researched COVID-19's origins.

He stated that the fact that other members of the intelligence community examined the same data as the DOE and "apparently didn't move the needle" speaks volumes." He believes such intelligence assessments should be taken with a grain of salt because the people conducting them lack "scientific expertise."
Worobey believes that S. should be more transparent and release the new intelligence that appears to have swayed the DOE.

The conclusion comes as House Republicans use their new majority power to investigate all aspects of the pandemic, including its origin and what they claim were officials' efforts to conceal the fact that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan. As part of their investigation, Anthony Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera, and others were present.

The now-retired Fauci, who served as the nation's top infectious disease expert under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has dismissed the GOP criticism. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike McCaul, R-Texas, has requested that the Biden administration provide Congress with a "full and thorough" briefing on the report and the evidence supporting it.

President Joe Biden, according to Kirby, believes it is important to know what happened "so we can better prevent future pandemics," but that such research "must be done in a safe and secure manner and as transparent as possible to the rest of the world."