You can call it a Chinese spy balloon, but for years, the American public was discouraged from calling Covid-19 the China Virus. That was racist, the elites said.

But the federal government is coming around. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that another agency has changed its position on the origin of Covid-19, which was probably starting to spread in China as early as November of 2019. A new classified report provided to the White House and key members of Congress says the virus was a leak from a research lab.

The Department of Energy had earlier labeled its position on the Wuhan lab theory as “undecided.” Now, both the Energy Department and the FBI conclude the lab leak from a Chinese research facility is most likely the correct theory. Four other agencies are still saying that the virus was the result of natural transmission, and another two agencies are still in the “undecided” category, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“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 newspaper wrote.

“The Energy Department made its judgment with ‘low confidence,’ according to people who have read the classified report.

“The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with ‘moderate confidence’ and still holds to this view.

“The FBI employs a cadre of microbiologists, immunologists and other scientists and is supported by the National Bioforensic Analysis Center, which was established at Fort Detrick, Md., in 2004 to analyze anthrax and other possible biological threats.”

The FBI, which came to the conclusion a year earlier, has a wide network of microbiologists, immunologists, and scientists on its staff, and is also sharing information with the National Bioforensic Analysis Center, established in 2004 to research anthrax and other possible biological threats, the Journal reported.

Over the past three years, social media, academicians and others have said the theory that Covid was leaked from a lab in China constituted misinformation, disinformation, xenophobia, and yes, racism.

The Yale University School of Medicine even published a list of do’s and don’ts for people, which encouraged professionals to not have honest conversations about Covid. The list included:

“DO: Talk about the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19)”
“DO NOT: Attach locations or ethnicity to the disease; this is not a “Wuhan Virus,” “Chinese Virus,” or “Asian Virus.” The official name for the disease was deliberately chosen to avoid stigmatization.”

By warning people from even referring to it as the Wuhan Virus, the academic and government ruling class put its stamp of disapproval on legitimate inquiry as to the origins. Those who called it the Wuhan Virus or China Virus were routinely shamed by the Left and called, at a minimum, racist.

NPR, where much of the ruling class of America get its news, said it was virtually impossible for the virus to have been leaked from a lab. In NPR’s report in 2020, the government-sponsored news organization wrote:

“Virus researchers say there is virtually no chance that the new coronavirus was released as result of a laboratory accident in China or anywhere else.

“The assessment, made by more than half-a-dozen scientists familiar with lab accidents and how research on coronaviruses is conducted, casts doubt on recent claims that a mistake may have unleashed the coronavirus on the world,” NPR reported. Then it said that President Trump was peddling a false theory.

“The accident theory has been advanced by the Trump administration in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a set of State Department cables leaked to The Washington Post pointed to U.S. safety concerns at labs in Wuhan, the city where the virus emerged. Intelligence agencies are currently assessing the possibility of an accident, and last Wednesday, President Trump promised “a very thorough examination” of events.

“‘I will tell you, more and more, we’re hearing the story,”‘ Trump said on April 15 [2020] of the theory that the virus came from labs in Wuhan.”

But Trump Derangement Syndrome had set in in newsrooms across America and NPR was no exception:

“But after corresponding with 10 leading scientists who collect samples of viruses from animals in the wild, study virus genomes and understand how lab accidents canhappen, NPR found that an accidental release would have required a remarkable series of coincidences and deviations from well-established experimental protocols,” NPR wrote.

NPR receives less that 1% of its funding directly from the federal government, but about 10% of its funding from federal, state, and local governments indirectly, according to InfluenceWatch.org.

Facebook, one of the largest distributors of current event news, removed or edited millions of comments that linked the virus to Wuhan, China. Finally, in 2021, the company changed its policy:

“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,” a spokesman for Facebook said. Just a year earlier the company bragged that it put warnings on 50 million “pieces of content related to Covid-19.” The damage had already been done, with millions of users in the shadow-ban category, without even knowing their posts were not being seen on Facebook. Twitter had similar policies for sharing information.

“When people saw those warning labels, 95% of the time they did not go on to view the original content,” Facebook reported, explaining its successes in censorship. Whenever Facebook labels an article false by its company or its independent “fact checkers,” the social media platform will hide the content from everyone, without the author of that consent even being aware that no one is seeing their post.

Read how Facebook suppresses points of view at the company’s own explainer page.

Read the Director of National Intelligence unclassified report on Covid origins from August, 2022, at this government link.

Read the 2020 report from NPR that debunked the China lab leak theory.

Read MedPageToday’s 2021 editorial discrediting of former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield’s theory that the virus was the result of gain-of-function research in China.

Read the summary of the research commissioned by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., released in October by the minority oversight staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, which concludes that the COVID-19 pandemic was “more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.”