The Department of Energy believes that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, was the most likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report.

The report in the Wall Street Journal cited a classified intelligence report given to members of Congress and the White House.

The Journal report noted that different agencies have reached different conclusions, with the Energy Department and the FBI coming down on the side of the lab leak theory, while other agencies remain undecided or lean toward believing there was some type of natural transmission not yet discovered.

Now that the U.S. Department of Energy has joined FBI in concluding that the coronavirus likely leaked from a lab, it’s worth remembering that the media, en masse, condemned the lab leak theory as a “debunked conspiracy theory,” and Facebook censored people who dared suggest it pic.twitter.com/RuT0w0SgpV

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 26, 2023

COVID-19 first erupted in China during or about November 2019 before leaping worldwide early the next year. Initially, China claimed the source of the virus was a market selling exotic animals in Wuhan. Contrary opinions arose that the virus emerged from a research lab in Wuhan. During the debate over the origin of the virus, advocates of the lab leak theory were initially derided as "conspiracy theorists" until over time evidence emerged that gave credence to their view.

The debate still rages. Last week, Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, acting director of the National Institutes of Health, said equating the viruses being studied at Wuhan with the one that caused the pandemic was like “saying that a human is equivalent to a cow,” according to The New York Times.

U.S. officials “added that while the Energy Department and the FBI each say an unintended lab leak is most likely, they arrived at those conclusions for different reasons.” https://t.co/VA7vQ9rN2C It’s been 25 months since @SenTomCotton declared this on my radio show.

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) February 26, 2023

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, a Republican representative from Kentucky, has pledged that the GOP-controlled House will fully investigate the origins of COVID-19.

“Understanding the origins of COVID-19 is essential to providing accountability and protecting Americans in the future.  Evidence continues to mount pointing to the virus leaking from an unsecure lab in Wuhan,” he said in a news release on the committee’s website.

Comer said that now-retired Dr. Anthony Fauci “was alerted early on that COVID-19 had markings of a manipulated virus yet may have chosen to cover it up instead of blowing the whistle. We will continue to follow the facts to determine what could have been done differently to better protect Americans from this virus and hold U.S. government officials that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable.”

The Journal report said that the National Intelligence Council and four agencies the Journal’s sources would not name believe with “low confidence” that the virus emerged through natural means.

The report said the CIA and another agency that went unnamed are undecided.

The Journal’s report said the “Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.”

The Energy Department pegged its guess with “low confidence,” the Journal report said, citing “people who have read the classified report” it did not name.

The leak was not part of a biological weapons program, the Journal cited its sources as saying.

This was originally called disinformation by Fauci and left wing media @nytimes @cnn Anybody who spread it was called a conspiracy theorist and suspended on social media. Where is our apology dammit? https://t.co/mhm9YsqfBM

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) February 26, 2023

David Relman, a Stanford University microbiologist, praised the report.

“Kudos to those who are willing to set aside their preconceptions and objectively re-examine what we know and don’t know about Covid origins. My plea is that we not accept an incomplete answer or give up because of political expediency,” he said.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.