FBI Director Christopher Wray has publicly stated Covid-19 likely came from a Chinese lab leak in a new interview.
The Fox News interview, which aired today, is the first time the FBI has publicly confirmed its position on the pandemic's origin.
"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan," Wray said.
"Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab."
He said the agency believes China tried to "thwart and obfuscate" its experts' investigation from the beginning.
"Our work related to this continues, but most of it is classified," Wray added.
It comes as this week the US 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.
China yesterday pushed back at renewed suggestions that the Covid-19 pandemic could have been the result of a lab leak, saying it has been "open and transparent" in the search for the virus' origins.
"Politicising the issue of virus tracing will not smear China but will only damage the US's own credibility," China's US Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.
Some scientists are open to the lab-leak theory, while others believe the virus came from animals, mutated, and jumped into people.
Experts say the true origin of the pandemic may not be known for many years, if ever.
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