The EE. UU. no intelligence network has uncovered no direct indication of a “biosecurity incident” or the pre-pandemic presence of the virus that causes COVID-19 at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, according to a report released Friday by the office of the director of national intelligence. (ODNI).
The newly declassified document added major points to a developing framework of inconclusive evidence about the origins of the pandemic.
The 10-page report, which he mandated through law passed by Congress and signed into law in March by President Biden, in particular tested possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not make an assessment. of the likelihood that the outbreak started there.
While some lab researchers increase their threat of accidental exposure to WIV viruses due to inadequate protective precautions, and “several” became ill in the fall of 2019, according to the report, U. S. intelligence agencies are becoming ill in the U. S. U. S. officials remain divided over whether the pandemic began with herbal transmission. or accident.
The report notes that some scientists at the institute have genetically changed coronaviruses through non-unusual practices, but that there was “no data” indicating that such studies had been conducted on the virus that causes COVID-19. “Almost all” agencies read the factor. The virus “has not been genetically modified,” he said.
The report also states that several WIV investigators showed “consistent but undiagnosed symptoms of COVID-19” in the fall of 2019, some had symptoms unrelated to the disease, and others showed they had unrelated illnesses.
The timing and type of workers’ ailments “do not refute or disprove any of the hypotheses about the origins of the pandemic, as the researchers’ symptoms may have been caused by a number of ailments and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19,” according to the report. Said.
China has denied that the virus originated in the Wuhan lab and a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry has in the past accused the United States of “politicizing origin tracing. “
In a pair of declassified tests released last year, the ODNI revealed that U. S. intelligence agencies are not in the business of using the U. S. government. UU. se had grouped around two “plausible” theories: that the virus was the result of herbal transmission or the result of a laboratory accident.
In Friday’s report, its distribution was consistent. Five U. S. intelligence agencies U. S. officials continue to consider the virus to be occurring naturally. Two, the FBI and the Department of Energy, favor the lab leak theory, though “for other reasons. “And the CIA and some other companies couldn’t make a resolution without more information.
“The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have explanations to give,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner and Select Subcommittee Chairman on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup said in a joint statement, adding their view that the ODNI report added “credibility. “to the theory of laboratory leakage.
“While we appreciate the ODNI report, corroboration of all available evidence, as well as further investigation into the origins of COVID-19, will need to continue,” they said.
In public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Chinese government’s lack of cooperation is a “critical and critical flaw” in explaining the origins of the pandemic.
“It’s a difficult problem,” Haines told the panel in March. “And I think our people are honestly trying to do everything they can to perceive what exactly happened, based on the data they have. “