No direct evidence proving that coronavirus was created in any incident which took place at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology was found by United States intelligence agencies, said a report declassified on Friday.
The Office of the Director of national intelligence’s (ODNI) four-page report stated that the United States intelligence community cannot still rule out the possibility of the virus emerging from the laboratory, however, they have not been able to find evidence that proves the pandemic originated from the lab in any incident.
“The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both (natural and lab) hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting,” the ODNI report stated.
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The report stated that while they have conducted “extensive work” on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute (WIV), no evidence of a specific incident has been found by the agencies that proves to have caused the outbreak.
“We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the Covid pandemic,” the report stated.
China obstructing independent reviews: Lawmakers
Lawmakers have asked intelligence officials to share more materials about the origins of coronavirus. However, the officials have argued repeatedly that the official obstruction created by China in independent reviews makes it impossible to find the origin of the pandemic.
The report emerged three months after a fuller explanation of the information, that the US intelligence has on the pandemic’s origin, was demanded by the lawmakers.
Few lawmakers have alleged that the virus was produced from the gain-of-function genetic engineering research which was carried out in the Wuhan lab and that the evidence has been covered up by Beijing.
Reiterating a conclusion which was reached in March, the ODNI report stated that “almost all” of its constituent agencies, which include the CIA, FBI and NSA have assessed that the coronavirus was not engineered genetically, however, many believe that it was not laboratory-adapted.
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COVID-19 not developed as bioweapon?
The report stated that pathogen research was conducted by Wuhan lab as well as vaccine development along with with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “for public health needs.”
However, the use of coronaviruses in this research “were too distantly related to have led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2,” the report claimed. The report also strongly rejected the allegations the virus was developed as a bio-weapon by the PLA.
(With inputs from agencies)
