White House Says New Intel Not 'Definitive' Answer on COVID-19 Origins

“The intelligence community and the rest of the government is still looking at this,” John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson said. Kirby was responding to reports that the Energy Department had concluded — based on new intelligence — that a lab leak in China was the most likely cause of the pandemic, a shift from the previous position that it was not clear how the COVID-19 virus began to spread. But the Energy Department study reportedly offered the conclusion with “low confidence,” and it's not clear what the intelligence was that changed its conclusion. The U.S. intelligence community is split on the conclusion that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab. Four other federal agencies believe that it likely jumped to humans from an animal host outside a lab. Read more from The Hill here.