‘It’s just gotten crazy’: how the origins of Covid became a toxic US political debate

New report supporting theory the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab has sparked the latest eruption in a long fight over how the virus started, clouding efforts to pursue a neutral, fact-based inquiry

White House official John Kirby, standing at the podium where Donald Trump once railed against the China virus" and praised the healing powers of bleach, faced questions on Monday about the origins of Covid-19. He had no choice but humility. There is not a consensus right now in the US government about exactly how Covid started," Kirby admitted. There is just not an intelligence community consensus."

The renewed interest in a genuine scientific mystery followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that the US Department of Energy had determined the coronavirus most likely leaked by accident from a Chinese laboratory.