Did the coronavirus originate from an animal or from a leak in a Chinese lab? A critical question that haunts governments and international health organizations remains unanswered three years after the outbreak.

Now the US Department of Energy (DOE) is assessing with “low certainty” that the virus started after a lab leak, according to a person with access to the report, which has not been made public. However, US intelligence sources disagree.

“Right now, there is no consensus within the US government on exactly how Covid started,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Monday.

The US Department of Energy’s conclusion that the pandemic likely originated from a leak from a Chinese lab was first revealed by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, which said the classified report was based on new classified information.

White House officials declined to confirm press reports of the assessment.

It is recalled that in 2021 a report was published in which four members of the US intelligence community believed with “low confidence” that the virus was originally transmitted from an animal to humans, and a fifth member with “moderate confidence” believed that the first human infection was due to laboratory.

And while some scientists do not rule out the possibility of a leak from the lab, others still believe that the virus originated in animals, mutated and transmitted to humans – as has happened with viruses in the past. Experts estimate that the true origin of the pandemic may remain unknown for many more years, if at all.

“Unintentional Leak”

As Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard, points out, while she is unaware of the source and accuracy of the new information contained in the report, “it is reasonable for agencies to conclude” that (the coronavirus) is related to the Wuhan Institute. , China. According to her, the 2018 research proposal, written by scientists there and their American employees, “essentially described a plan to create viruses like COVID. Less than two years later, such a virus caused an epidemic in the city.”

The Wuhan Institute has been studying coronaviruses for years, in part because of broader concern that coronaviruses could be the source of the next pandemic.

Not a single intelligence agency has yet reported how the leak was intentional. The 2021 report was clear on this: “We believe that the virus was not developed as a bioweapon.”

“Laboratory accidents happen with surprising frequency. Many don’t learn about lab accidents because they aren’t discussed publicly,” explains Chan, who has written a book about investigating the origins of Covid. Such accidents “highlight the need to make dealing with high-risk pathogens more transparent and accountable,” she says.

In any case, China has called the claim that Covid originated in a Chinese lab “unsubstantiated.”

Animal transmission theory

However, many scientists believe that the theory of transmission of the virus from animals to humans remains more reasonable. They suggest that the virus originated in nature and passed from bats to humans, either directly or through another animal host.

In a 2021 study published in the journal Cell, scientists reported that Covid-19 is the ninth virus reported to have infected humans, with all previous ones originating from animals.

Two more 2022 studies published in the journal Science also supported the animal origin theory, estimating that the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was an early source of the virus and concluding that the virus could have been transmitted from animals to humans in two different locations. cases.

“The scientific literature contains mostly original research papers confirming the natural origin of this pandemic,” said Michael Sparrow, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who has studied the origins of Covid extensively.

The fact that others in the intelligence community read the same information as the Energy Department and “haven’t said anything new,” he notes, says a lot. He says he doesn’t take such assessments seriously because the people who make them “do not have the scientific knowledge to really understand the very important facts that they need.”

Source: Associated Press.