(LR) Director of Defense Intelligence, Lt Gen. Scott Berrier, Director of National Security, General Paul Nakasone, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Director CIA William Burns and FBI Director Christopher Wray testify during a House Select Committee hearing on Intelligence regarding worldwide threats, on Capitol Hill March 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. Leaders of intelligence agencies testified on a variety of issues, including China, Russia, the origins of Covid-19 and TikTok.
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A long-awaited government report on the origins of Covid-19 has provided new details on the findings of the US intelligence community but did not specify whether the origin of the coronavirus was animal exposure. infected object or a laboratory event.
“All agencies continue to assess that both natural origin and laboratory involvement remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the 10-page document said. declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The report pointed to divisions within the Intelligence Community.
While the National Intelligence Council and four unnamed agencies found that natural contact with infected animals was highly probable, the Department of Energy and FBI assessment was a related incident. Laboratory visit is the most likely situation to cause the first human infection.
Meanwhile, the CIA and an unidentified agency “remain unable to determine the exact origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both theories are based on important assumptions or face challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.” conflicting reports,” the report states.
But “nearly all” intelligence agencies agree that the virus is not genetically modified, and all agencies agree that Covid was not manufactured as a biological weapon.
Conference through the law earlier this year asked the intelligence community to declassify information regarding a potential link between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the pandemic.
The report sheds light on the Wuhan institute, which was once at the center of the theory that the virus escaped the laboratory and started infecting people or was transmitted to humans from animals.
In 2021, a US intelligence report identified three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who sought hospital treatment after falling ill in November 2019 — providing evidence indirectly, inconclusively seems to support the hypothesis that the virus may have spread to humans after exiting the lab.
The intelligence community in March expanded its investigation into Covid-19, by examining whether the first human infection with the virus was the result of natural contact with an infected animal or an incident. related to the lab, according to Friday’s report.
A spokesman for the White House National Security Council said the release of the report reflects President Joe Biden’s commitment to “declassify and share as much information as possible regarding the origins of COVID-19,”. while protecting the sources and methods”. The spokesperson added that “getting to the bottom” of Covid remains a priority for the president.
