US intelligence releases report investigating origin of Covid-19

The 4-page ODNI report said the US intelligence community still cannot rule out the possibility that SARS CoV-2 came from a laboratory, but they cannot find the origin of Covid-19, according to Reuters.

"The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, as both theories (natural and laboratory-related) are based on assumptions, or are challenged by conflicting reports," the ODNI report said.

According to the report, although research was conducted on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, US intelligence agencies have not found evidence of a specific incident that could have caused the outbreak of Covid-19.

Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, during a visit on February 3, 2021 by a team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) tasked with investigating the origins of Covid-19.

"We still have no indication that WIV's pre-pandemic research included SARS CoV-2... nor does we have direct evidence that a specific research-related incident that occurred, involving WIV personnel pre-pandemic, could have caused the Covid-19 pandemic," the ODNI report said.

The origins of the Covid-19 pandemic have been a matter of fierce debate in the United States almost since cases of Covid-19 were reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

US President Joe Biden signed a bill in March 2023 to declassify information related to the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time of signing the bill, President Biden said he shared the goal of the US Congress to reveal as much information about the origins of Covid-19 as possible.

President Biden issues law to declassify information on the origin of Covid-19 virus, China opposes

FBI Director Christopher Wray said on February 28 that the FBI had at one point assessed that the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic was “very likely a potential laboratory accident” in Wuhan. Meanwhile, China said such a claim “has no credibility whatsoever,” according to Reuters.

As of March 20, four other US agencies still assessed that Covid-19 was likely the result of natural transmission, while two agencies had yet to reach a conclusion, according to Reuters.

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