There is disagreement among US officials, according to the FBI director and the US Department of Energy, who claim that the coronavirus originated in a lab.
Origins of COVID-19 are still unknown. It is still unknown, three years after the epidemic began, whether the coronavirus that causes the illness escaped from a lab or was transferred from an animal to people.
One thing is certain: As COVID-19 misinformation has persisted since the start of the pandemic, any new knowledge concerning the virus’s origin rapidly causes a relapse and the reappearance of false claims about the virus, vaccinations, and masks.
Although the US Department of Energy acknowledged that a classified investigation had found, with low confidence, that the virus had escaped from a lab, it occurred once more this week. Within hours, COVID-19 conspiracy ideas were more frequently brought up online, and many users claimed the confidential report proved they had been correct all along.
We already know the origins of Covid. It was published in Nature, one of the three most important scientific journals in the world.
— Dr. Craig Malkin ☮️ (@DrCraigMalkin) February 23, 2023
We don’t need to hear your insipid theories—not from any of you qanon halfwits.https://t.co/iR3LQSzRc4
The Energy Department’s report, which is far from conclusive, is just the most recent of numerous attempts by researchers and authorities to pinpoint the virus’s point of origin. Since it was first discovered in late 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the virus has now claimed the lives of nearly seven million people.
The report hasn’t been made public, and officials in Washington emphasized that different US agencies don’t all agree on where it came from. The FBI has determined that the pandemic’s origins are “most likely a probable lab incident in Wuhan,” according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who stated this to Fox News on Tuesday.
But, there is no agreement among the US intelligence community’s other members, who disagree. Several investigations and publications support the theory that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 crossed from animals to humans, presumably at Wuhan’s Huanan market, which is the explanation preferred by many scientists.
According to the World Health Organization, a lab leak must first be thoroughly examined even though an animal origin is still the most plausible explanation.
According to virologist Angela Rasmussen, people should be open-minded regarding the data utilized in the Energy Department’s evaluation. Nonetheless, she asserted that there is no justification for contesting the finding that the virus propagated spontaneously without considering the data included in the secret report.
Rasmussen tweeted on Tuesday, “We can and do know what the scientific data says. “The data still indicates zoonotic development at Huanan market,” the statement reads.
Nonetheless, many of those who used the study as evidence appeared uninterested in the facts. They leapt on the report and claimed it indicated the experts may have also been mistaken regarding masks and vaccinations.