Questions remain about the origins of COVID-19 as the Energy Department assessed that COVID-19 likely emerged from a Wuhan lab and as the FBI confirmed that it has long believed in the lab leak hypothesis.
The intelligence community still remains largely divided on the lab leak versus natural origin hypotheses, and it is unclear whether and how consensus might be reached on whether SARS-CoV-2 started at a Chinese government lab or at a Wuhan wet market, given the Chinese government’s long-standing obstruction.
As the saga continues, here are some of the key questions we still need answers to — and what we have been told by authorities.
WRAY SAYS FBI BELIEVES COVID-19 'MOST LIKELY' CAME FROM LAB LEAK IN WUHAN
Where do intelligence agencies stand?
All U.S. spy agencies agree COVID-19 originated in China — however, there are still major divides on where exactly.
This weekend, multiple reports revealed the Energy Department now believes with “low confidence” that the coronavirus started at the Wuhan lab.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News this week that the bureau has "for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan."
Multiple outlets have said the CIA remains undecided.
Divisions inside the intelligence community have regularly happened before, although perhaps not quite as dramatically on such a key issue in recent memory.
Lab vs. market
ODNI released a further declassified document on COVID-19 in October 2021, including a section titled “The Case for the Laboratory-Associated Incident Hypothesis” — apparently a summary of the FBI’s argument — which said “WIV researchers’ inherently risky work with coronaviruses provided numerous opportunities for them to unwittingly become infected with SARS-CoV-2” and that “WIV researchers conducted research with bat coronaviruses or collected samples from species that are known to carry close relatives of SARS-CoV-2.”
The declassified late 2021 document also included “The Case for the Natural Origin Hypothesis,” which argued that the Wuhan lab’s “activities in early 2020 related to SARS-CoV-2 are a strong indicator that the WIV lacked foreknowledge of the virus” and that “the natural infection of a hunter, farmer, or merchant would be more likely than the infection of a lab worker collecting animal specimens.”
Declassification efforts
Republicans have been adamant the Biden administration needs to declassify intelligence on COVID-19’s origins. ODNI declined to comment this week on why it wouldn’t or couldn’t declassify that information.
House Intelligence Committee Republicans pushed for Biden’s ODNI to declassify all intelligence on COVID-19’s origins in early 2021, and a bipartisan bill called for declassification too.
In an effort led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), the Senate unanimously passed a bill on Wednesday night requiring ODNI to declassify its intelligence on COVID-19’s origins.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, sent letters to Wray, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday, demanding they hand over all assessments on COVID-19’s origins.
GOP confidence vs. Democratic hesitance
Numerous former Trump officials believe COVID-19 began at the Wuhan lab. Trump CDC Director Robert Redfield said in March 2021 that COVID-19 “most likely” emerged from a Wuhan lab. Trump deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger has been saying publicly as early as 2021 that the evidence for a lab leak “far outweighs” that for natural origin.
Former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said on Fox News this week that “China is responsible for the deaths of now tens of millions of people — more than a million Americans — as the result of a lab accident in Wuhan” and predicted that the entire intelligence community would eventually agree with the lab leak hypothesis.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted this week, “There was always enormous evidence that the Wuhan coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan lab.” He has made nearly identical comments since at least May 2020.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans concluded in 2021 that “the preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory” in 2019. Senate Health Committee Republicans assessed last year that the novel coronavirus “more likely than not” came from the Chinese lab.
House Intelligence Committee Republicans assessed in December 2022 that “there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to China’s biological weapons research program.” But House Intelligence Democrats largely sidestepped the origins question in their own report, saying that “we do not know whether the virus was the result of a lab accident or natural transmission.”
“There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how COVID started. There is just not an intelligence community consensus,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said Monday. “If we have something that we believe can be reported to the Congress and to the American people that we’re confident in, we will absolutely do that.”
Chinese obstruction
Officials from both the Trump and Biden administrations have said that the Chinese government has now worked for years to thwart an independent investigation into the origins of the virus, and both administrations cast doubt on the manner in which a joint study between the World Health Organization and China released in early 2021 was conducted.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in late March 2021 that the WHO-China team had not fully investigated the lab leak hypothesis, which had been dubbed "extremely unlikely" by the WHO-China joint study. Tedros admitted in July 2021 that there was a "premature push" to dismiss the lab leak possibility but that the Chinese government repeatedly shot down another investigation. An advisory group assembled by the WHO said in June 2022 that the lab leak hypothesis needed additional study.
The Chinese government and its state-run outlets have, from the start of the pandemic through this week, continued to push a baseless conspiracy theory that COVID-19 originated within the U.S. military.
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NIH and the Wuhan lab
Scientists consulting with the U.S. government early in the pandemic in 2020 believed COVID-19 originating from a lab in Wuhan was possible or even likely, but emails indicate Dr. Anthony Fauci and then-NIH Director Francis Collins worked to shut the hypothesis down.
EcoHealth leader Peter Daszak was a longtime collaborator with the Wuhan lab and its “bat lady” leader Shi Zhengli. Daszak steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in NIH bat coronavirus funding to the Chinese institute.
Daszak dismissed the lab leak hypothesis in March 2021 when he admitted he took Wuhan lab workers at their word. Meeting minutes from discussions between lab scientists in Wuhan and the WHO-China team reveal lab leak concerns were referred to as “myths” and “conspiracy theories.”
Despite EcoHealth breaking NIH rules and the Wuhan lab refusing to hand over relevant information on its coronavirus research, NIH has continued to fund EcoHealth’s viral work to the tune of millions of dollars.