A classified U.S. intelligence report submitted to President Joe Biden was inconclusive about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the widespread theory that the virus jumped from animals to humans, due to a lack of information from China, where the fatal error arose in Wuhan.
The intelligence community could not come to a solid conclusion about whether the virus had jumped on humans using bats or escaped from a research center in China’s central city, two officials told the Washington Post Americans familiar with the matter.
In May, the president ordered intelligence agencies to produce a report “that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion” on the origins of a pandemic that has killed more than 4 million people worldwide and it has wreaked havoc on national economies.
But after a thorough 90-day effort, intelligence officials failed to reach a consensus, according to officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is not yet public. They said some parts could be declassified in the coming days.
When Biden ordered the investigation, he said U.S. intelligence agencies were divided into “two likely scenarios”: the virus emanated from animals or a laboratory.
The commander-in-chief revealed that two agencies leaned toward the theory that the error arose from human contact with an infected animal, while a third leaned toward laboratory accident theory.
The Trump administration highlighted the theory of laboratory leaks, after the World Health Organization initially considered it “extremely unlikely” that it would spread in the mainstream media.
However, in an impressive investment earlier this month, Dr Peter Ben Embarek, who led a team of international scientists on a WHO-led mission to China in January, admitted he was now considering the possibility. a “probable hypothesis.”
Beijing has repeatedly denied the hypothesis, but refused to allow international researchers to conduct more thorough research.
Meanwhile, in June, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines warned that agencies might not solve the mystery, according to the Washington Post.
“We hope to find a smoking gun,” Haines told Yahoo News, but added that “it’s hard to do. It can happen, but maybe not.”
Haines told the media that the review involved dozens of analysts and intelligence officers from various agencies, and said he deployed “red blood cells” or groups to make sure intelligence would be studied from all angles.
Another official told the Washington Post that the intelligence community “is not necessarily better equipped to solve this problem,” which is essentially a scientific issue.
In July, according to Biden, during a visit to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, he said that “you will have to increase your ranks with people with significant scientific capacity in relation to pathogens.”
David Relman, a Stanford University microbiologist who has called for a comprehensive investigation of all the hypotheses, told the Washington Post in an email: “We shouldn’t even think about closing the book or making a go back, but to make an effort “.
Proponents of the laboratory leak theory point to classified information, first disclosed toward the end of the Trump administration, that three workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology went to a hospital in November 2019 with similar symptoms. to the flu.
Opponents, however, argue that many scientists have noted that viruses have a long history of jumping from animals to people.
The theory of natural origin was reinforced in a June 7 report in the journal Nature that documented 38 species of animals sold in 17 markets in Wuhan before the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
“It simply came to our notice then [coronavirus] in fact, susceptible animals were sold in Wuhan markets, which greatly changes the calculation, “Robert Garry, a microbiologist at Tulane University who strongly supports the theory of zoonosis, told the Washington Post in an email.
On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the public would be informed of the report’s results.
“I don’t know what format it will take at this point,” he said.
With publishing cables