MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th February, 2023) US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday there was still no definitive answer about the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic after the US Energy Department claimed in a classified report that the virus came from a laboratory leak in Wuhan.
The Wall Street Journal cited people who read the Department's report as saying that new intelligence suggested the virus had resulted from a mishap in a Chinese lab, rather than emerged through natural transmission from an infected animal to a human.
Sullivan confirmed, in an interview with CNN, that the US intelligence community remained split about the virus's origin, with some agencies siding with the natural transmission theory and others with the lab leak, while still others were undecided.
"If we gain any further insider information we will share it with Congress and we will share it with the American people, but right now there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this matter," he said.
Sullivan said he could not confirm or deny the Wall Street Journal report. As far as the Energy Department goes, he added, President Joe Biden "specifically requested that the national labs, which are part of the Department of Energy, be brought into this assessment because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here."
