US Intelligence Community on COVID-19 Origins: Animal Transmission or Lab Leak?

Prattiba JaiSri

3 years ago

After a 90 day investigation ordered by President Joe Biden, the US Intelligence Community submitted a two-page report on the summary of their probe into the origins of COVID-19.

However, the reports may have raised more questions than answers.

Several theories have circulated around the world on the origins of the globally impacting COVID-19 pandemic. Two of them are that the virus was a natural transmission from animals, or that the virus came from a laboratory leak.

Although the reports by the US Intelligence community remain inconclusive, their findings saw that either of these two theories could be possible.

Another thing that the Intelligence community confirmed is that there is little to no evidence that the virus was genetically engineered as a bio-weapon.

However, the IC promises that it will continue to fervently look for answers despite challenges including the lack of raw data.

According to reports, one intelligence agency said that the virus was caused “probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute.”

Other intelligence agencies say they could not proceed with a definitive answer without additional information.

“The IC– and the global scientific community — lacks clinical samples or a complete understanding of epidemiological data from the earliest Covid-19 cases,” says the Intelligence Community.

President Joe Biden slams China for being uncooperative with the investigation.

“Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in the People’s Republic of China,” Biden says. ” And yet (…) government officials in China have worked to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from accessing it.”

China has refused to share information from the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, and that lack of transparency has reportedly been a major hurdle in the process of getting the necessary information for a more comprehensive review.

The Chinese government has maintained the virus originated and spread naturally and that its officials didn’t have an idea about the virus until its eventual spread.

Biden ordered the investigation earlier this year after several scientists at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology had to be hospitalized. Since then, an influx of calls demanding a US-initiated deep investigation into the origins of COVID-19 kept growing.