The Energy Department says it
now believes a lab leak in
China is most likely
the cause of the COVID 19 pandemic.
Now, before
now, the department said it was undecided
on how the virus emerged.
It cites updated intelligence
for this new assessment.
Now a caveat.
Sources tell
CNN the Energy Department
has just low confidence
in these findings.
China, predictably, is furious
and pushing back.
David Culver joins us now.
So, David,
you were in Wuhan
in China in January of 2020
where the first COVID cases
were detected.
There was a theory back
then that the virus had emerged
at a massive food market there
and then travel to animals.
Tell us
about how China is now
responding, though, to this new report.
You hit it, Brianna,
when you said that
they're not happy with it.
This infuriates them.
This is one of the most sensitive issues
for the Chinese government.
And it's been so sensitive
going back to, say,
April 20, 20 a few months
after the initial outbreak
that they launched
this relentless propaganda campaign
to try to counter the narrative,
to try to sow doubt and deflect blame.
And it seems to have been
mostly successful within China
and that it's muddied the waters there.
But their reaction
a few hours ago
from the foreign
ministry is one of the
we've really, quite frankly, seen
many times before,
and that is
they're telling the US
to stop smearing China
and to stop politicizing the issue.
Also worth noting in that response
from the foreign ministry today,
they point out the W.H.O.
conclusion
after their field visit in 2021
and they say that the W.H.O.
field team determined
that it was highly unlikely
that a lab leak
was the origin of COVID 19.
That is true.
The W.H.O.
field team
did say that and in their conclusion
to that field visit
the issue is the unknown Victor.
That also went on to ask for a second
follow up field visit.
And the Chinese
said, no, that's not going to happen.
They did not let that team
back into Wuhan, China.
And we're hearing
from some of those scientists
who are part of that.
And they told me early
on that
they had asked for data
from some of the Chinese officials
who were on the ground
and that data was never handed
over to them.
Would
cover thank you for
the reporting and stay with us here.
CNN national security analyst Juliette
Kayyem is joining the conversation.
She's the former assistant secretary
of the Department of Homeland Security.
Juliette,
how much credence should people give
a most likely report
from the Energy Department
in which they only have low confidence
Right. Not much.
And I'll just be clear here.
You have to look at the totality
of the intelligence
community's assessment.
So it may be confusing
to people who haven't been in this world.
I've been a consumer of intelligence
my entire career. So you have four.
So so
what happens when there's a question
like this is different
intelligence communities
assess what they know
and what they've determined.
You are going to rely on the Expertize
of certain intelligence
agencies over another.
So a perfect
example is a maritime threat.
You're going
to lean more heavily on the Coast Guard
than you would say on TSA.
On an aviation threat.
So right now, here's
the scorecard, so to speak.
You have the Department of Energy
at low confidence,
the FBI at medium confidence
for intelligence agencies.
More likely
than not on the natural release side
and an overall national
intelligence review
Also in the state,
most likely that it was natural.
These are all caveated.
And so we don't know.
I mean, the truth is we don't know.
But the idea that
that in energy department switch
to low confidence is changes
that calculation
or should be used
politically is
just it's a misunderstanding.
Of how the intelligence works.
So, Juliette,
how should we read these qualifiers then?
Because the FBI had deemed
this moderate confidence
that this began in a lab.
And now we have this information
from the Department of Energy.
Low confidence.
Right.
So.
So these are all just levels of caveat.
In because intelligence is
is something that has to be consumed
and then assessed by analysis.
So here's where I start.
Not a single intelligence
community member nor the W.H.O.
believes that it is purposeful
bioterrorism.
I want to make that clear
because it is
this report
is being manipulated to suggest
that China was purposeful.
All the lab leak theory
is also an accidental theory,
no matter who you ask.
It is
that someone
got infected in the lab
and then it starts to spread.
So between the lab leak and and
and natural causes.
The second point is
we won't know because China,
of course, views this as as a threat
to whatever narrative they were,
the narrative that they want to put out.
So we don't have full transparency.
And so the question
now is, what do we do with this?
Why does this matter?
What matters obviously
because you're going to want labs
to be safer and
and to know what had happened.
Does it change?
Does it
change a
narrative about how each individual
country responded? Probably not.
And the reason why we want to be careful
about how we interpret
this is because as we're
reporting, China's reaction does matter.
I mean, you know,
I mean,
if this was a lab leak,
it's very different to them
than if this was in, say,
a market or natural causes.
So but I'm
maybe I've been in this role too long.
I'm comfortable in the space of
we don't know yet,
but the
totality of the intelligence community
believes
more likely that it was natural causes.
And all of the intelligence community
believes that it was not bioterrorism.
David, talk to us more about Guha.
And you've been there
three times since the initial outbreak.
Talk to us about the research labs there.
There's more than one.
There are there
there are several and two
in particular, Victor,
that have gotten
the focus
of those who are skeptical
of how the Chinese have handle this.
And to Juliette's point,
the idea that this was manufactured
and intentional, that this lab leak then
is the source of COVID 19
and that this is what
the origin theory is rooted in.
You can put that aside and you can say
perhaps it is accidental.
And then the amplification in point
where it was really that initial outbreak
was that market.
But when you look at the labs,
I think this is really important.
You have to
look at the circumstantial evidence
of where they're located.
One of them is about a 30 minute drive,
the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
From that first amplification
point, the market,
the other just two blocks away.
And the other thing
that is undeniable
that all of this is the early handling
or mishandling
from the Chinese government.
I mean, we covered this extensively.
There was the silencing
of whistleblowers,
one of them being a doctor who
we spoke with a few days
before he ultimately died from COVID 19.
And he was simply trying to warn friends
and family
that this was a strange
mystery illness going around
that got screenshot at it
and went very public
and got him in a lot of trouble
with local police.
So there was certainly
from the local government in Wuhan
an effort
to stop the rumors,
as they put it, from being spread
and to keep this quiet.
And that is ultimately
what folks are looking at here
as the real culpability factor,
even beyond how this started, is
how it was mishandled and the cover up
that followed.
Yeah, I remember you covering that, Dr.
David.
I believe he was an ophthalmologist
or something at the time,
and it was just heartbreaking to see
what happened to him.
Julie,
I think the overall concern here
is not necessarily
just pointing the finger
at who's to blame here.
We know that this virus
originated in China.
We know that, unfortunately,
we will see future viruses and pandemics
to come.
And the fact that China
has not been
transparent in terms
of allowing investigators
in, I think is a bigger concern.
That's exactly right.
And look,
you don't get time
back in the pandemic, so.
Exactly as we're all saying,
whatever the genesis is,
there is a moment
when this can be contained
and China knows that. Right.
And so their failure to act
we call it the squandered time, right?
The January, possibly December.
The dates are still up in the air
as of 2019 or January 20, 20
when they start to notice
a respiratori disease
that is spread
very quickly and is killing.
They are not transparent about that.
There's there's no politics about this.
They they call in the W.H.O.
they allege in early
January of 2020
that they're concerned
about this new outbreak
but it's not causing any deaths
that's just that can't possibly be
true right.
China was sufficiently concerned
that they begin to notify
by early January
people like me who read this stuff
are starting to get concerned.
And so if you look at a containment
period,
China's lack
of transparency is responsible
for what happened in the two years
I have no doubt about that.
Its exact
genesis is still is still unknown.
Yeah.
Well, they're still denying
that it even began in China.
Juliette, and David Culver,
thank you so much.