Global Courant
(L-R) Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier Director of the National Security Agency Gen. Paul Nakasone Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines CIA Director William Burns and FBI director Christopher Wray testifies at a House Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on global threats, on Capitol Hill on March 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. Intelligence leaders have testified on a wide variety of topics, 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 offered new details about the US intelligence community’s findings, but did not definitively state whether the source of the coronavirus was exposure to an infected animal or an event in a laboratory.
“All agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-related origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the 10-page page released report said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The report exposed divisions within the intelligence community.
While the National Intelligence Council and four unnamed agencies found natural exposure to an infected animal to be the most likely, the Department of Energy and FBI’s assessment was that a lab-related incident was the most likely scenario for the first human infection.
Meanwhile, the CIA and an unidentified agency “remain unable to determine the precise origins of the COVID-19 pandemic as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face conflicting reporting,” the report states.
But “almost all” intelligence agencies agreed that the virus was not genetically engineered, and all agencies agreed that Covid was not manufactured as a biological weapon.
Congress legislation passed earlier this year required the intelligence community to release information regarding possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the pandemic.
The report shed light on the Wuhan Institute, which was at the center of a hypothesis that the virus escaped from a laboratory and began infecting humans or was transmitted to humans from an animal.
In 2021, a US intelligence report identified three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology who sought treatment at a hospital after falling ill in November 2019. after escaping from the lab.
The intelligence community expanded its investigation into Covid-19 in March by examining whether the first human infection with the virus resulted from natural exposure to an infected animal or a lab-related incident, Friday’s report said.
A spokesman for the White House National Security Council said the release of the report reflects a commitment by President Joe Biden “to release and share as much information as possible about the origins of COVID-19 while protecting sources and methods.” .” The spokesperson added that “getting to the bottom of” Covid remains a top priority for the president.
