Where Did COVID-19 Originate? New 'Lab Leak' Report Reignites Explosive Debate

The fervent debate over the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic has reignited after the U.S. Energy Department concluded with "low confidence" that the coronavirus leaked from a lab.

The Department of Energy's report has still left politicians and intelligence agencies divided over the two possibilities: the virus leaked from a lab in China or naturally transmitted from animals to humans.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the Department of Energy's assessment Sunday. The White House later said there is still no government consensus about how the pandemic, which killed nearly seven million people worldwide, began.

"The intelligence community and the rest of the government are still looking at this," John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson, said at a press briefing 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," Kirby continued, as quoted by The Hill. "What the president 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."

"There is not a consensus in the U.S. government about how COVID started. There is not an intelligence community consensus," Kirby added.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan also said in an interview that there are a "variety of views in the intelligence community" about the pandemic's origin.

"Right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question," Sullivan told CNN.

GOP members took the Department of Energy's "low confidence" assessment as an opportunity to say their claims were right about a lab leak causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Energy, which oversees a network of U.S. labs, was previously undecided on the origin of COVID-19 but has now changed its assessment with "low confidence." However, it is unclear what evidence led the Department of Energy to make this conclusion.

"The fact is that the Department of Energy changing its position to "low confidence" means that the amount of evidence in the direction of lab leak or natural spillover is still very limited," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital, according to ABC News.

Former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci reportedly did not comment on the Department of Energy's report.

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, was among those who took to social media to remind the public that the Department of Energy's "low confidence" assessment still does not put a conclusive end to the lab leak vs. natural origin debate.

Stand taken by other agencies:

Siding with the "lab leak" theory, the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded with "moderate confidence" that the coronavirus accidentally originated from a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses, Forbes reported.

The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease previously suggested the coronavirus originated naturally and spread from an animal host to humans. They also cited bats as a possible source.

The Centers for Disease Control's website also says the SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) "likely originated in bats."

The Central Intelligence Agency is one of the agencies that reportedly remains on the fence without choosing a side in the lab leak and natural transmission theories.

A report released about two years back by the World Health Organization (WHO) also confirmed the widespread contamination of the SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan's Huanan food market in China. The lab leak was reportedly mentioned as the "least likely hypothesis" but said at the time that further investigation is necessary.