The Senate and the House of Representatives will be in session this week for Committee business and floor voting.

As we close out Black History Month, let’s join the Trust for American Health in celebrating notable African American in public health.

From the Covid front, the Wall Street Journal reports

The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.

The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

From the miscellany department —

• Fortune Well provides us with insights on how to manage a life-threatening diagnosis.

• Health Payer Intelligence tells us what payers can expect to find in the proposed CMS electronic prior authorization rule. The public comment deadline on the rule is March 13, 2023

• Fierce Healthcare calls our attention to
  • Optum’s “latest quarterly Drug Pipeline Report, highlighting products coming through the pipeline that payers should be watching.”
  • An EBRI survey report finding that employers intend to offer employee benefits for the long term.