US split on origins of Covid-19, according to intelligence report
US intelligence services have concluded that, while there is no direct evidence of Covid-19 being released from a Chinese laboratory, the potential of it being a natural or artificial origin is still plausible. Their evaluation also suggested that the virus was not deliberately altered or manipulated. This point has been strongly refuted by China and has caused considerable controversy in America.
As a result of a bill passed by Congress in March, US intelligence was given 90 days to declassify the information it had about the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) on Friday night. "The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, since both (natural and lab) hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting," said the 10-page report.
>As a result of the findings, four agencies believe that the virus spread from animals to humans, while two other agencies - the Energy Department and the FBI - maintain that the virus spread from a laboratory. Despite the findings that the US intelligence community still couldn't rule out the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory, the report states that Covid-19 wasn't developed as a biological weapon.
The report stated that the WIV and Chinese army had collaborated on coronaviruses for public health, but not on infections that could have been the source of Covid-19. According to the report, scientists at the WIV have created "chimeras," or combinations of coronaviruses, and used reverse genetic cloning to conceal intentional changes.
According to the report, some researchers did not take adequate biosafety precautions before the pandemic. However, US intelligence does not know if there was a specific biosafety incident at the Wuhan lab that led to the outbreak of Covid-19. A number of researchers there became ill in autumn of 2019, but their illnesses could have been caused by a number of diseases, and some of their symptoms were not consistent with Covid-19, according to the report.
Why Covid lab-leak theory is so disputed by FBI Chief
John Ratcliffe, who served as US Director of National Intelligence under former President Donald Trump, responded to the report by accusing President Joe Biden's administration of "continued obfuscation". He said in a statement: "The lab-leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense." The WIV - which is situated just 40 minutes away from Huanan wet market - has raised eyebrows since it is where the initial Covid cases emerged late in 2019. Additionally, the 2021 joint China-World Health Organization investigation found this theory to be "extremely unlikely", however many felt this report had caused more confusion than resolution. Consequently, some experts feel we may never know the real source of Covid-19 which has sadly taken nearly seven million lives worldwide.
