US intelligence agencies said on Friday there is no evidence that a Chinese laboratory at the center of the debate over the origin of COVID-19 did genetic engineering related to the virus that caused the pandemic or had it in stockpile before the 2019 outbreak. Have kept such viruses.
In a report required by Congress, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it was unable to trace the origins of the pandemic, with intelligence agencies divided over whether the virus passed to humans through an infected animal or a laboratory accident. . This report is a summary of the findings of the major US intelligence agencies.
The report publicly acknowledged for the first time the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Energy’s assessment that a “laboratory-related incident” was likely responsible for the pandemic that has killed nearly seven million people worldwide, while other agencies believed that natural infection was the cause. The report said that the Central Intelligence Agency and another unnamed agency say they are unable to explain the reason.
The origins of COVID-19 are increasingly politically and scientifically untenable following revelations about research and biosafety practices at the Chinese laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the failure to identify the animals responsible for the pandemic more than three years later. has become an issue. began.
In March, President Biden signed a law passed by Congress that required his administration to make public within 90 days information relating to the origins of the pandemic, including any links between the Wuhan lab and the pandemic. The legislation was passed after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Energy had changed its assessment to conclude with less confidence that the pandemic probably resulted from a laboratory leak.
Friday’s 10-page declassified report said the Wuhan lab, also known as WIV, at times collaborated with China’s People’s Liberation Army on viral research, including on the coronavirus. But, it added, that work “does not include any known virus that could potentially be an ancestor of SARS-CoV-2,” the virus that causes Covid.
The declassified report said that WIV researchers “probably did not use adequate biosafety precautions at least for some time before the pandemic” when dealing with the corona virus that causes COVID, “which allowed the virus to increased risk of accidental exposure.” But, it added, “we are not aware of any specific biosecurity event in WIV that triggered the outbreak.”
Early in the pandemic, in November 2019, three researchers at the Wuhan Institute fell ill, with symptoms of either COVID or seasonal flu-like illnesses. The Journal reported the names of three this week, including a prominent scientist who worked on coronavirus projects funded by the US government.
The new report states that US intelligence agencies “assess that this information neither supports nor refutes any hypothesis of the origin of the pandemic as the researchers’ symptoms could be caused by a number of diseases and some symptoms were not COVID-19 compliant.”
Warren P. Strobel at [email protected] and Michael R. Write to Gordon at [email protected].