Likely cause of Covid pandemic is lab leak in Wuhan, China: FBI director

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray has claimed that a lab leak in Wuhan, China was likely the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. During an interview with Fox News, Wray stated that the FBI had believed for some time that the pandemic's origins could have been due to a potential lab incident.

Wray suggested that this was a result of a potential leak from a lab that was under the control of the Chinese government. Wray also stated that the Chinese government were uncooperative with US investigators, who had been attempting to determine the virus's origins.

The FBI earlier stated that a malfunction in a Chinese facility was most likely how the virus spread. Two agencies are still unsure, but four other agencies and a national intelligence body remain of the opinion that it was most likely the outcome of a natural transmission.

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The FBI has experts who focus on biological threats, including the danger of novel viruses like COVID-19 falling into the wrong hands, whether that be "bad guys", a hostile nation state, terrorists or criminals, Wray explained. He noted that the Chinese government had been actively working to hinder investigations into the virus's origins.

Wray's comments come after the US Energy Department concluded earlier that, according to a classified intelligence study recently given to the White House and important members of Congress, the Covid pandemic most likely resulted from a laboratory breach.

Prior to this, the Energy Department couldn't decide how the virus emerged. The latest study emphasised how many intelligence community stakeholders reached divergent conclusions regarding the pandemic's genesis.

In October 2021, CNN cited two sources familiar with the matter while reporting that the FBI had “moderate” confidence about the lab leak theory. Moreover, several experts from various intelligence services who were unable to concur on either theory provided a low-confidence judgement that the virus originated in a lab.

The originally-reported pandemic of the virus only happened in Wuhan, where the lab was located, and researchers who conducted sampling activity across China offered a node for the virus to reach the city, according to analysts who supported the lab leak idea.