Row Rages on, Nobody sure on COVID-19 origins 

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer 

#USA, March 6, 2023 – US agencies are clashing on the origins of COVID-19 with the FBI reiterating its view that the disease, which has killed 6 million people came from a lab, and is accusing China of blocking US probes.

Christopher Wray, FBI Director told Fox News last Tuesday :“We certainly have a role in looking into the origins of the coronavirus– the FBI has assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incidents in Wuhan.” he said “The Chinese Government it seems to me has been doing it’s best to try to thwart the work here.”

Wray said he agreed with a recent Department of Energy study that lists as a lab leak the likeliest cause of COVID though the DoE itself has admitted they have ‘low confidence’ in the report which they only shared with members of congress the Wall Street Journal says.

Wray continued “Here you’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government controlled lab that killed millions of Americans and that’s precisely what that capability was designed for.”

The consensus is at odds with findings from other departments in a highly censored report shared by the National Intelligence Council. The report says that 8 government departments conducted investigations into COVID origins.  Four agencies and the NIC say with ‘low confidence’  it was natural exposure likely from an animal that caused the outbreak. Two say they aren’t sure and one agency with ‘moderate confidence’ says “the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

The White House has waded into the fray advising against any definitive language. John Kirby NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications reminded in a press conference that the effort to find the origins of COVID is a whole government effort and no consensus had been made so far.

“There is just not enough intelligence community consensus– that work is still ongoing.”

China has slammed the study from the DoE and warned the US to ‘stop politicising the origins of Covid.’