The World Briefly
February 28, 2023Loaded Mystery
China
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China rejected new allegations about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic after the US Department of Energy concluded this week that Covid-19 most likely came from a lab leak, The Hill reported Monday.
Over the weekend, a new report showed that the Energy Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation think that a mishap at a Chinese laboratory resulted in the spread of the virus that has killed more than six million people worldwide, the Wall Street Journal noted.
But the Energy Department reached its judgment with “low confidence,” while other unnamed agencies suggested that the pathogen spread by natural transmission from an infected animal.
Following the report’s release, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning dismissed the findings, saying that the issue should not be politicized. She cited a 2021 World Health Organization-China joint study that concluded that the lab leak theory was “extremely unlikely.”
Meanwhile, US officials countered that the recent assessment displays “a variety of views” from the intelligence community on Covid-19’s origins and hasn’t come up with a “definitive answer” to the question.
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