What conclusions did the intelligence come to
The US Office of National Intelligence has published the main findings of a declassified report on the study of the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The intelligence community has reached a consensus that:
- the virus was not developed by China as a biological weapon
- Chinese officials had no information about the virus until the first outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 emerged
In addition, most intelligence agencies believe that the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus was probably not genetically engineered. However, such conclusions are not final, and the two structures insist that there is insufficient evidence to rule out the hypothesis of the artificial origin of the virus, the document says.
Given the incomplete information available to the United States, the intelligence community still considers two possible hypotheses for the origin of the coronavirus – the transmission of SARS-CoV2 from animal to person and the leak from the laboratory. Supporters of the natural theory of the origin of the virus in the intelligence community point to the lack of preparation by the Chinese government for the emergence of a hotbed of the virus. Analysts who support the version of the laboratory origin of SARS-CoV2 note that working with coronavirus samples is very dangerous and can lead to accidents.
“After examining all the intelligence, the US intelligence community did not come to a consensus on the key theories of the origin of COVID-19. All intelligence agencies consider two hypotheses likely: natural transmission from an infected animal and a laboratory incident, ”the report said.
The report also mentions when the virus emerged. “Intelligence believes that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, probably first infected a small number of people no later than November 2019, while the first outbreak of COVID-19 arose in Wuhan in December 2019,” in the document.
American intelligence will be able to make more accurate conclusions only after receiving additional data, the report says. “It will likely require China's cooperation to judge the origin of COVID-19 with greater certainty, but Beijing continues to interfere with the international investigation, refuses to share information [about COVID-19] and shifts the blame to other countries, including the United States.” , – summed up in the office of national intelligence. In particular, US intelligence would like to see the earliest samples of the virus.
Most American respondents believe that the cause of the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic was its leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a survey prepared by Politico magazine and Harvard University. In favor of the “laboratory” hypothesis, 52% of the respondents expressed their opinion, 28% in favor of the transmission of the virus from an animal, the rest did not decide on the answer or adhere to a different theory. The sample of the survey was 1,000 people.
A classified version of the report was presented to US President Joe Biden on Tuesday, August 24, two days before publication to the public, The Washington Post wrote. However, as the newspaper notes, the secret version of the document also did not contain conclusions about the origin of COVID-19, including whether it came from an animal or from a person, whether it was part of a natural process or the result of a leak from a Chinese laboratory.
At the same time, according to The New York Times, American intelligence has yet to investigate data on the origin of COVID-19. The CNN TV channel, citing its own sources, reported that the American special services had gained access to the files of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Published in the United States, the report is the second report on the emergence of the virus. The first report on the origins of the coronavirus was presented to President Joe Biden in May. Two of the three intelligence structures that worked on that report lean towards the natural origin of the virus, and the third in favor of the theory of accidental leakage of the virus, Biden commented on the content of the document. “Most [analysts] do not believe that they have enough information to assess which version is more likely,” the president summed up. Then, on May 26, Biden instructed to prepare a new report in order to more thoroughly study the nature of the virus and the role of China.
In June, the director of US National Intelligence, Avril Haynes, said the intelligence community would likely be unable to pinpoint the origin of the virus. “We want to find objective and obvious evidence [of any hypothesis about the origin of the virus], but this is very difficult,” she said.
What speaks in favor of the theory of laboratory origin of COVID
The version that the COVID-19 virus could arise as a result of a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan was actively promoted by former US President Donald Trump. There is no consensus in the American scientific community regarding the origin of COVID and some experts admit the virus is leaking. “This possibility exists, and I support an investigation into whether this could have happened in reality,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases on May 11.
In June, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed there was evidence of laboratory origin for the coronavirus. “We know that [the Wuhan lab] used to have leaks due to security flaws. We know that there were doctors who fell ill and were hospitalized in the fall of 2019, ”he said. However, the head of the US National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, noted that there is no direct evidence of a coronavirus leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.
In May, The Wall Street Journal, citing a secret US intelligence report, wrote that at least three scientists from the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan suffered a serious illness in November 2019, even before the first official information about the coronavirus appeared. Chinese scientists have worked in a laboratory that studies coronaviruses and other pathogens. In November, they consulted doctors with symptoms that were at the same time similar to the signs of COVID-19 and the usual seasonal SARS.
The World Health Organization (WHO) does not exclude the possibility of laboratory origin of COVID-19, but considers it unlikely. In the winter, a team of 34 experts under the auspices of WHO conducted an investigation into the origin of COVID-19 in the city of Wuhan, where the virus began to spread. The experts called the transmission of the virus to humans from bats through an intermediary animal as the most likely hypothesis, and the theory of the laboratory origin of the virus was considered extremely unlikely. At the same time, the WHO indicated that they did not receive from the Chinese authorities all the documents required to study the circumstances of the emergence of the virus. In August, WHO announced the creation of a new group to study the origins of the virus.
