US intelligence agencies may be unable to identify COVID-19 origins

The intelligence agencies of USA said they may never be able to identify the origins of the COVID-19, when they released a new and more detailed version of their review on whether the coronavirus came from animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a laboratory.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a declassified report that a natural origin and a laboratory leak are plausible hypotheses about how SARS-COV-2 first infected humans. But he said analysts disagree on which one is more likely or whether any definitive assessment can be made.

The report also rejected suggestions that the coronavirus originated as a biological weapon, saying that proponents of this theory “do not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology” and have been accused of spreading disinformation.

The report released on Friday is an update of a 90-day review that President Joe Biden’s administration released in August, amid heated domestic political disputes over how much to blame China for the effects of the pandemic rather than governments that they may not have acted quickly enough to protect citizens.

Former Republican President Donald Trump, who lost his re-election bid as the pandemic ravaged the US economy, and many of his supporters referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus.”

Some US spy agencies had been in favor of the explanation that the virus originated in the wild, but there has been little corroboration and in recent months the virus has spread widely and naturally among wild animals.

The ODNI report noted that four US spy agencies and a multi-agency body have “little confidence” that COVID-19 originated with an infected animal or related virus.

But one agency said it had “moderate confidence” that the first human COVID-19 infection could have been the result of a laboratory accident, likely related to animal experimentation or handling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Espionage agencies believe they will not be able to produce a more definitive explanation of the origin of COVID-19 without new information showing that the virus took a specific route from animals to humans or that a Wuhan laboratory was handling the virus or a related virus before. COVID-19 emerged.

The report assures that US agencies and the global scientific community lacked “clinical samples or a complete understanding of the epidemiological data of the first cases of COVID-19” and adds that they could revise this inconclusive finding if more evidence emerges.

China has faced international criticism for not cooperating more fully in investigations into the origins of COVID. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.