WASHINGTON: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has assessed that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China "likely" caused the Covid-19 pandemic, according to FBI director Christopher Wray.
“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News on Tuesday.
His comments follow a Wall Street Journal report on Sunday that the US Energy Department had assessed with “low confidence” that the pandemic resulted from an unintended lab leak in China.
Four other American agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that the pandemic was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided, the Journal reported.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Monday the US government still had not reached a definitive conclusion and consensus on the pandemic’s origins.
Wray said he could not share many details of the agency’s assessment because they were classified.
He accused the Chinese government of “doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate” efforts by the United States and others to learn more about the pandemic’s origins.
Asked about the Energy Department report at a press briefing on Monday, Mao Ning, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said a joint WHO-China mission had already found the lab leak theory “extremely unlikely”.
“Origins tracing of Covid-19 is a science matter and shouldn’t be politicised. China has supported and participates actively in international origins tracing,” she said.
“Certain parties should stop rehashing the ‘lab leak’ narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicising origins-tracing.”
Regardless of the different conclusions, the lack of rapid access to the lab and Wuhan at the start of the pandemic by independent monitors will continue to fuel doubts about the origins of the virus.
Wray’s assertion comes at a crucial time in Chinese-US relations. The two countries have been sparring over issues from Taiwan, to technology and surveillance, and China’s potential support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
