(L-R) Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrill, NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes, CIA Director William Burns and FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a House Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on global threats March 9, 2023 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Intelligence community leaders testified on a wide range of issues, including China, Russia, the origins of Covid-19 and TikTok.
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A much-anticipated government report on the origins of Covid-19 provided new details on the findings of the U.S. intelligence community, but did not clarify whether the source of the coronavirus was exposure to infected animals or a laboratory incident.
“All agencies continue to assess that both natural and laboratory-related origins remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the 10-page report said. declassified report The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.
The report lays out divisions within the intelligence community.
While the National Intelligence Council and four unnamed agencies found that natural exposure to infected animals was most likely, the Department of Energy and the FBI assessed that the lab-related incident was more likely a case of first-time human infection.
Meanwhile, the report states that the CIA and an unidentified agency “remain unable to determine the exact origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or are challenged by conflicting reports.” .
But “virtually all” intelligence agencies agree that the virus was not genetically engineered, and all agencies agree that the new coronavirus was not created as a biological weapon.
Congress pass legislation Earlier this year, the intelligence community was asked to declassify information about potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the pandemic.
The report sheds light on the situation at the Wuhan Institute, which has been the center of a hypothesis that the virus escaped from the laboratory and began to infect humans or spread from animals to humans.
In 2021, a U.S. intelligence report found that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology went to the hospital to seek treatment after becoming ill in November 2019, providing inconclusive circumstantial evidence that appeared to support the possible spread of the virus to humans Assumptions After escaping from the lab.
The intelligence community expanded its investigation into Covid-19 in March, examining whether the first human infection with the virus was the result of natural exposure to an infected animal or a lab-related incident, according to a report on Friday.
A White House National Security Council spokesman said the release of the report reflected President Joe Biden’s commitment to “declassify and share as much information as possible related to the origins of COVID-19 while protecting the sources and methods.” The spokesman added that “getting to the bottom of the virus” remains the president’s top priority.