A long-awaited government report on the origins of covid-19 offered new details about the findings of the US intelligence community, but did not definitively indicate whether the source of the coronavirus was exposure to an animal infected or an event in a laboratory.
“All agencies continue to assess that both natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the 10-page statement reads. declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.
The report exposed divisions within the Intelligence Community.
While the National Intelligence Council and four unnamed agencies found that natural exposure to an infected animal was the most likely, the Department of Energy and FBI assessment was that a laboratory-associated incident was the most likely scenario for the infection. first human infection.
Meanwhile, the CIA and an unnamed agency «remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses are based on significant assumptions or are challenged by conflicting reports,» the report states.
But «almost all» the intelligence agencies agreed that the virus was not genetically modified, and all the agencies agreed that the covid was not manufactured as a biological weapon.
Congress passed a law earlier this year requiring the intelligence community to declassify information related to possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the pandemic.
The report shed light on the Wuhan institute, which has been at the center of a hypothesis that the virus escaped from a laboratory and began infecting people or was transmitted to humans via an animal.
In 2021, a US intelligence report identified three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology who sought treatment at a hospital after falling ill in November 2019, providing inconclusive circumstantial evidence that seemed to bolster the hypothesis that the virus it may have spread to humans after escaping from the lab.
In March, the intelligence community expanded its investigation into Covid-19 by examining whether the first human infection with the virus was the result of natural exposure to an infected animal or a laboratory-related incident, according to Friday’s report.
A White House National Security Council spokesman said the release of the report reflects President Joe Biden’s commitment to «declassify and share as much information as possible related to the origins of COVID-19, while protecting sources.» and the methods”. The spokesperson added that «getting to the bottom of the origins» of Covid remains a priority for the president.
courtney kube, Monica Alba and Ken Dilanian contributed.
