- No Direct Evidence of Lab Escape: Declassified US Intelligence Report
- Natural and Laboratory Origin Both Plausible: Office of the Director of National Intelligence
- Debate and Uncertainty: Origins of Covid-19 Remain Unresolved
According to a declassified report, US intelligence agencies have found no direct evidence that Covid-19 escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
Both a natural and laboratory origin remain plausible, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
It was stated that the majority of US intelligence agencies concur that the virus was not genetically engineered or “laboratory-adapted.”
In the United States, the origins of the pandemic have been the subject of heated debate.
China has categorically refuted the lab-leak hypothesis.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its report on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) on Friday night, 90 days after Congress passed a measure in March granting US intelligence 90 days to declassify its knowledge of the institute.
The 10-page report stated, “The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency are unable to determine the precise origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, as both (natural and lab) hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face difficulties with conflicting reporting.
The findings indicate that four agencies believe the virus was transmitted from animals to humans.
The Energy Department and the FBI continue to believe that the pathogen escaped from a laboratory.
According to the findings, the US intelligence community cannot rule out the possibility that the virus originated in a laboratory.
The report states that all US intelligence agencies concur that Covid-19 was not developed as a biological weapon.
The WIV and Chinese army studied coronaviruses for public health, but not Covid-19 infections.
However, the report also revealed that scientists at the WIV engineered “chimeras,” or combinations of coronaviruses, and used techniques for reverse genetic cloning that could conceal intentional alterations.
Before the pandemic, several researchers did not use adequate biosafety precautions, according to the findings.
Also the paper claims US intelligence is ignorant of a Wuhan laboratory biosafety mishap that produced the COVID-19 pandemic.
The paper said several researchers became unwell in autumn 2019, although their symptoms were inconsistent with Covid-19.
John Ratcliffe, who served as US Director of National Intelligence under former President Donald Trump, responded to the report by accusing the administration of President Joe Biden of “continued obfuscation.”
“The lab-leak theory is the only one supported by science, intelligence, and common sense,” stated Mr. Ratcliffe in a statement.
Those who support the leak theory have pointed out that the WIV is only forty minutes away from the Huanan wet market, where the first concentration of Covid infections appeared in late 2019.
The lab-leak theory was deemed “extremely unlikely” by a 2021 investigation conducted jointly by China and the World Health Organisation, but the organization was criticized for its report, which many experts believed raised more questions than it answered.
Some scientists believe Covid, which has killed nearly seven million people, may never be discovered.
