On Friday, the intelligence agencies of the United States said that the origins of Covid-19 may never be known. The agencies presented a fresh, more extensive version of their investigation into whether the coronavirus came via animal-to-human transmission or was spilled from a lab.
In a declassified study, the Office of the United States Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) stated that both a natural origin and a lab leak are feasible possibilities for how SARS-COV-2 initially infected humans. Analysts dispute on which is more likely, and whether any definitive evaluation can be made at all.
The paper also rejected the claims that the Covid-19 virus was developed as a bioweapon, claiming that proponents of this hypothesis did not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and have been accused of spreading false information.
The report, released on Friday, was an update of a 90-day review provided by President Joe Biden’s administration in August, amid heated political debate over how much to blame China for the global pandemic’s impact rather than nations that might not have moved swiftly enough to protect their residents.
China reacted to the report by denouncing it on Friday.
COVID-19 was referred as the ‘China virus’ by former Republican President of the United States, Donald Trump and many of his followers, who lost their re-election attempt as the lethal pandemic decimated the economy of the country.
The theory that the virus originated in nature was embraced by several spy services in the United States. However, there has been little confirmation. Covid-19 has spread rapidly and organically among wild animals in recent months.
Four US spy agencies and a multi-agency committee said that they had ‘low confidence’ that COVID-19 started with an infected animal or a kindred virus, according to the ODNI study.
One organisation stated that it had ‘moderate confidence’ that the first human COVID-19 infection was most likely the consequence of a laboratory error, most likely involving experiments or animal handling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
China has been under fire from the international community for its hesitance for complete cooperation in the examination of COVID’s origins. That criticism was also disregarded in the embassy statement.
China stated that they have been actively engaged in science-based initiatives on origins tracing and would continue to do so. It added that they were adamantly opposed to attempts to politicise the subject of Covid-19.
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