Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that it believed that Covid-19 “most likely” came from a “Chinese government-controlled lab”.
For quite some time, the FBI has opined that the pandemic’s origin is most likely a potential lab incident, Wray told Fox News in what was the first public confirmation of the bureau’s classified judgment of how Covid-19 emerged.
China has denied that the coronavirus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, calling the accusation defamatory. Wray’s remarks come a day after the US ambassador to China asked the country to “be more honest” about the pandemic’s origins. In his interview, Wray said Beijing “has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate” efforts to discover the source of Covid-19. “And that’s unfortunate for everybody,” he added.
#FBI Director Wray confirmed that the Bureau has assessed that the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a lab incident in Wuhan, China. pic.twitter.com/LcBVNU7vmO
— FBI (@FBI) March 1, 2023
Possibility of transfer from animals
Some studies suggest the virus transferred from animals to humans in Wuhan, possibly at the Chinese city’s seafood and wildlife market, which is at a distance of a 40-minute drive from a world-leading virus lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which researched coronaviruses.
Meanwhile, other US government agencies have concluded differently than the FBI, on the matter, with varying degrees of confidence in their findings. US media reported on Sunday that the country’s energy department made a “low confidence” assessment that Covid-19 originated from a lab leak. The agency had previously said it was undecided on how the virus began.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday that US President Joe Biden supports “a whole-of-government effort” to discover the origins of Covid-19.
