No government consensus on COVID lab leak theory, says White House

New Delhi: Even as the Department of Energy determined that a lab leak was the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic , the White House has downplayed and refused to acknowledge this information, claiming that there is still no government consensus on the origins of the outbreak. “The intelligence community and the rest of the government is still looking at this,” John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson, said at a press briefing on Monday. “There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here,” he said. He said what President Joe Biden wants is facts. “He wants the whole government designed to go get those facts. And that’s what we’re doing, and we’re just not there yet,” he added. According to reports that surfaced on Sunday, the Energy Department had changed its view from holding that it was unclear how the COVID-19 virus spread to one that a lab breach in China was the most likely origin of the epidemic. The Energy Department study reportedly offered the conclusion with “low confidence” and the intelligence information that changed its conclusion is unknown. But Kirby and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre  on Monday would not weigh in on those reports or confirm them, instead insisting that the wider government was still looking into how the pandemic started. “The president made trying to find the origins of COVID a priority when he came into office, and he’s got a whole government effort designed to do that,” Kirby said. “There is not a consensus in the US government about how COVID started. There is not an intelligence community consensus.” US intelligence community split on conclusion The US intelligence community is split on the conclusion that the deadly virus leaked from a Chinese lab. Four other federal agencies believe that it likely jumped to humans from an animal host outside a lab. Those findings are also reportedly made with low confidence. US government officials have been pressing to learn more about how COVID-19 originated since the pandemic first began in early 2020, with Republicans in particular suggesting it may have jumped from a lab in Wuhan, China. China rejects US report China on Monday rejected a new US report that claimed the COVID-19 virus may have leaked from a bio laboratory in Wuhan, saying the origins-tracing of the pandemic “is about science and should not be politicised.” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the international experts have considered the theory that the pandemic might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory as “extremely unlikely”. She said it is a science-based, authoritative conclusion reached by the experts of the WHO-China joint mission after field trips to the lab in Wuhan and in-depth communication with researchers. The controversial lab-leak theory first emerged early on in the pandemic and was promoted by then-US President Donald Trump. China has rejected the claim that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory, calling it a smear, and has suggested the coronavirus may have entered the country in food shipments from another country. Given the massive human toll of the pandemic, most scientists think understanding how and where the virus originated is crucial to prevent it from happening again. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.