Theory about the origin of the Covid pandemic still divides the USA – 06/27/2023 – Science

US intelligence agencies do not believe that the case of three workers at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, who became ill in 2019, can help clarify whether the Covid-19 pandemic originated from an accidental leak from the laboratory, according to a report released last Friday (23).

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a long-awaited report that included the spy agencies’ conclusions about the so-called laboratory leak theory, but the material is unlikely to satisfy many people who have struggled with the unanswered questions about the Origins of the Covid outbreak.

The ten-page report said scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had conducted research on coronaviruses, in some cases with inadequate safety measures and with genetically modified coronaviruses. But intelligence agencies said they had found nothing to indicate that lab work caused the pandemic.

“The intelligence community has no information, however, to indicate that any WIV genetic engineering work involved SARS-CoV-2, a close progenitor, or a backbone virus that is related enough to have been the source of the pandemic. “, the report said, referring to the intelligence agencies’ findings.

The country’s intelligence (CI) community, which includes more than a dozen organizations across government, is divided over the origins of Covid: two agencies believe a lab leak is more likely, while another five advocate natural transmission. of an animal market as the most likely cause of the Covid outbreak. The CIA and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the pandemic, given conflicting information, the report said.

“All agencies continue to assess that both natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the report said.

The illness of the three workers, first publicized by the State Department at the end of the Trump administration, has been the focus of researchers, journalists and intelligence agencies.

In August of last year, the agencies concluded that the workers’ case could not help analysts determine whether laboratory leakage or natural transmission was more likely.

However, the case of the three workers has received additional attention in recent days. A Chinese scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who has worked on US government-funded coronavirus projects was one of three researchers who fell ill in November 2019. However, US intelligence agencies have not determined whether the researchers had Covid or another illness with similar symptoms.

The report released on Friday reinforced the opinion of the agencies that the illness of the workers could not help to clarify the origins of the pandemic.

Workers became slightly ill, but the report cast some doubt on Covid as the cause. The report cites findings from the World Health Organization which said investigators from China’s National Safety Commission reported that blood samples from workers sick with Covid were negative. It is not clear from the report whether intelligence agencies believe the work of Chinese investigators, but the spy agencies do not believe that the workers’ illness can help resolve questions about the origins of the pandemic.

“The intelligence community continues to assess that this information neither supports nor refutes any hypothesis about the origins of the pandemic, because the researchers’ symptoms may have been caused by multiple illnesses and some of the symptoms were not consistent with Covid-19,” says the report.

The Trump and Biden administrations have ordered investigations into the origins of Covid, and intelligence agencies have generated hundreds of pages of material.

After three years of study, senior US officials said it was unlikely that the spy agencies would come to a satisfactory conclusion, mainly because China has not cooperated with international investigations and some Beijing officials are not interested in delving into the causes of the pandemic. .

The new report stems from a bipartisan US law that ordered intelligence agencies to release a declassified version of what they know about whether Covid could have been created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and then accidentally escaped from the lab.

The report was released on Friday night, traditionally a time when governments publish news they want to bury or ignore. Conservatives have criticized the government for missing the earlier-week deadline, even though few reports required by Congress are delivered precisely on time.

Despite Biden administration officials saying they ordered investigations without favoring one theory over another, Republicans have sharply criticized the way the White House and its intelligence agencies investigated the origins of Covid.

“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence and common sense,” said John Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, when the report was released on Friday. “The Biden administration’s politicization of the origins of Covid is a disservice to the intelligence community.”

^{Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves}