Citing a classified intelligence report provided to members of Congress, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the Energy Department has now concluded with “low confidence” that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely began after an unintentional laboratory leak in China.
The opinion comes from the government department that oversees a network of National Laboratories and Technology Centers and has the study of health as part of its jurisdiction. It’s not a definitive designation, even if the FBI has made the same declaration, albeit with “moderate confidence.” The origin of COVID-19 is a matter of crucial import to the world, not just vital to the assessment of culpability but to the cause of trying to prevent the recurrence of something similarly catastrophic. It remains an unanswered question.
But the statement from the Energy Department should be cause enough for much of the U.S. media to conduct a painful post-mortem on why it was so reluctant to credit this clearly logical theory with any status beyond a fringe view held by supporters of Donald Trump and other so-called outliers.
