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Edited by: TJVNews.com

China on Tuesday said it has been “open and transparent” in the search for the origins of COVID-19, after questions about how the pandemic began received new attention, the AP reported.

Most recently, the U.S. Department of Energy assessed with “low confidence” that the pandemic that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 began with the leak of a virus from a lab, the AP said. The report hasn’t been made public.

China had “shared the most data and research results on virus tracing and made important contributions to global virus tracing research,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning Mao told reporters at a daily briefing, according to the AP report. “Politicizing the issue of virus tracing will not smear China but will only damage the U.S.’s own credibility,” Mao said, in response to complaints from U.S. officials and members of Congress that China has not been entirely cooperative.

Her comments came amid continuing questions about how the virus that has killed more than 6.8 million people worldwide first emerged, as was reported by the AP.

Others in the U.S. intelligence community disagree with the U.S. Energy Department assessment of the lab leak, citing differing opinions within the government. “There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how COVID started,” John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said Monday, the AP reported.

The DOE conclusion was first reported over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal, which said the classified report was based on new intelligence and noted in an update to a 2021 document, the AP reported. The DOE oversees a national network of labs in the U.S.

White House officials on Monday declined to confirm press reports about the assessment. The AP reported that in 2021, officials released an intelligence report summary that said four members of the U.S. intelligence community believed with low confidence that the virus was first transmitted from an animal to a human, and a fifth believed with moderate confidence that the first human infection was linked to a lab.

While some scientists are open to the lab-leak theory, others continue to believe the virus came from animals, mutated, and jumped into people — as has happened in the past with viruses, the AP reported. Experts say the true origin of the pandemic may not be known for many years — if ever.

The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the report. The AP reported that all 18 offices of the U.S. intelligence community had access to the information the DOE used in reaching its assessment.

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, said she isn’t sure what new intelligence the agencies had, but “it’s reasonable to infer” it relates to activities at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, the AP reported. She said a 2018 research proposal co-authored by scientists there and their U.S. collaborators “essentially described a blueprint for COVID-like viruses.”

“Less than two years later, such a virus was causing an outbreak in the city,” she said. The AP also reported that rhe Wuhan institute had been studying coronaviruses for years, in part because of widespread concerns — tracing back to SARS — that coronaviruses could be the source of the next pandemic.

No intelligence agency has said they believe the coronavirus that caused COVID-19 was released intentionally, as was reported by the AP.  The unclassified 2021 summary was clear on this point, saying: “We judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon.”

“Lab accidents happen at a surprising frequency. A lot of people don’t really hear about lab accidents because they’re not talked about publicly,” Chan, who co-authored a book about the search for COVID-19 origins, told the AP. Such accidents “underscore a need to make work with highly dangerous pathogens more transparent and more accountable.”

Last year, the World Health Organization recommended a deeper probe into a possible lab accident, the AP reported.  Chan said she hopes the latest report sparks more investigation in the United States. China has called the suggestion that COVID-19 came from a Chinese laboratory “ baseless.”

The AP reported that many scientists believe the animal-to-human theory of the coronavirus remains much more plausible. They theorize it emerged in the wild and jumped from bats to humans, either directly or through another animal.

In a 2021 research paper in the journal Cell, scientists said the COVID-19 virus is the ninth documented coronavirus to infect humans, the AP reported, and all the previous ones originated in animals.

Two studies, published last year by the journal Science, bolstered the animal origin theory, the AP reported. That research found that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was likely the early epicenter. Scientists concluded that the virus likely spilled from animals into people two separate times.

Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who has extensively studied COVID-19′s origins told the AP that, “The scientific literature contains essentially nothing but original research articles that support a natural origin of this virus pandemic.”

He said the fact that others in the intelligence community looked at the same information as the DOE and “it apparently didn’t move the needle speaks volumes,” the AP reported. He said he takes such intelligence assessments with a grain of salt because he doesn’t think the people making them “have the scientific expertise … to really understand the most important evidence that they need to understand.”

He also said that the U.S. should be more transparent and release the new intelligence that apparently swayed the DOE, the AP reported.

The DOE conclusion comes to light as House Republicans have been using their new majority power to investigate all aspects of the pandemic, including the origin, as well as what they contend were officials’ efforts to conceal the fact that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the AP reported. Earlier this month, Republicans sent letters to Dr. Anthony Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others as part of their investigative efforts.

The AP also reported that the now retired Fauci, who served as the country’s top infectious disease expert under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has called the GOP criticism nonsense.

Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has asked the Biden administration to provide Congress with “a full and thorough” briefing on the report and the evidence behind it, according to the AP report.

Fox News reported that Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., tweeted, “Re. China’s lab leak, being proven right doesn’t matter.  What matters is holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable so this doesn’t happen again.”

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times had accused Cotton of repeating a “fringe theory” when he mentioned the lab leak possibility back in February 2020, Fox News reported. The Post issued a correction to one of its stories more than a year after calling the theory “debunked.”

The Times came under fire last month after a group of 43 national security experts signed a letter accusing the Times, Time magazine, Lancet and Nature Medicine of stifling debate on the origins of the virus, as was reported by Fox News.

Rep Ken Buck, R-Colo., tweeted: “The elites and academics owe everyone who had legitimate questions and concerns about the origins of COVID an apology. The American people deserve to see all the information concerning the Chinese lab leak and the origins of COVID. This won’t be forgotten.”

“4 [clown emojis] for Glenn,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas tweeted, according to the Fox News report, taking a shot at Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler who previously said, “It is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab” and attacked Cruz.

Fox News also reported that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio tweeted:”So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along.”

Also taking to Twitter was tweeted Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.who said, “Americans knew this from Day One. Unfortunately, Big Tech and Big Government silenced them, “ Fox News reported.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tweeted: “The American people deserve the full truth about #covid origins. No more whitewash. I will again introduce legislation to make the US government’s intelligence reports on covid open to the people.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., tweeted, “Former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci knew this immediately but dismissed it because of funding for the Wuhan lab,” Fox News reported. He added that, “We know what happened next — when Fauci spoke Big Tech censored. I exposed this collusion as AG and I’ll work to ensure this type of censorship never happens again.”

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted, “Big Tech censored information indicating COVID resulted from a lab leak. Now, Biden’s own Energy Department is saying that’s the most likely cause. We need accountability – for both the Chinese Communist Party and Big Tech.”

Fox News also reported that the Twitter account for Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability wrote: “More evidence continues to mount that COVID came from the Wuhan lab. We’ve uncovered emails showing Dr. Fauci was warned that the virus looked man-made & came from a lab, but he may have acted to cover it up. Why? We need answers & accountability.”

In a statement to the Fox News Digital on Sunday, a spokesperson for the Energy Department said, “The Department of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed,” according to the Fox News report.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was asked about the Journal’s report during an appearance on CNN Sunday: “There is a variety of views in the intelligence community. Some elements in the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure,” Sullivan said.

“President Biden specifically requested that the national labs, which are part of the Energy Department, be brought into this assessment because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here,” Sullivan said during the CNN interview, as was reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Asked about the Energy Department’s assessment, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska) said Sunday on NBC that Congress needed to hold extensive hearings concerning the origins of the pandemic, adding that China has sought to intimidate other countries from questioning whether the virus emerged naturally. “This is a country that has no problem coming out and lying to the world,” he said.

On February 13th, Fortune.com reported that House Republicans kicked off an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony.

The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested information from several people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, surrounding the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab, Fortune.com reported.

In a statement, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chair of the virus subcommittee said, “This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again.”

Fortume.com also reported that Rep. James Comer, R-Tenn., chairman of the oversight committee, added that Republicans will “follow the facts” and “hold U.S. government officials that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable.”

The letters to Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to make good on promises made during the 2022 midterms campaign, according to the report on the Fortune.com web site.

Republicans have accused Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May that the National Institutes of Health funded “gain of function” research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world — at a virology lab in Wuhan, China, as was reported by Fortune.com.  Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, even urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci’s statements.

The AP reported on November 28, 2021 that Fauci blasted Cruz for suggesting that he be investigated for statements he made about COVID-19 and said the criticism by the Texas Republican was an attack on science.

“I should be prosecuted? What happened on Jan. 6, senator?” Fauci said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives, and they’re going to be lying,” Fauci said at the time, the AP reported.

Fauci, who was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the GOP criticism nonsense. “Anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this,” he said at the time, according to the AP report.

Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, emphasized that President Biden believes it’s important to know what happened “so we can better prevent future pandemics” but that such research “must be done in a safe and secure manner and as transparent as possible to the rest of the world,” as was reported by the AP.

The New York Times reported that U.S.-China relations are already at a low, with the Biden administration having highly restricted the export of advanced chip-making technology and the two countries increasingly squaring off over Taiwan and the war in Ukraine. The NYT report also indicated that further fighting would likely lead to even more economic consequences for the two countries — and for those American companies continuing to expand in China (which are already poised to face congressional scrutiny).  – Sources: AP.com. FoxNews.com, Fortune.com, NYT.com