On June 23, the director of US intelligence disclosed that the available information does not support the claim that the COVID-19 virus was intentionally developed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology operated by the Chinese government.
According to a declassified report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), there is no credible evidence to support the allegations that three scientists working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were among the primary causes of COVID-19 infection and might have been responsible for engineering the virus.
The ODNI report has substantiated that scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology extensively experimented with genetic modification of coronaviruses akin to COVID-19, based on intelligence gathered by several constituent agencies of the United States Intelligence Community (IC).
Nevertheless, the United States Intelligence Community (IC) has stated that it lacks any information that suggests the scientists mentioned above directly conducted research on SARS-CoV-2, widely recognized as the cause of COVID-19 or any precursor virus that bears sufficient resemblance to be the origin of the global outbreak.
The ODNI report, which included a classified annex not disclosed to the public, was produced for Congress in response to calls by lawmakers three months ago for a more comprehensive account of US intelligence data on the source of the pandemic that emerged late in 2019.
Confident lawmakers contend that the COVID-19 virus was artificially developed through the controversial gain-of-function gene modification research at Wuhan. The Chinese government concealed indications suggesting that the outbreak was caused by human intervention.
The ODNI report has reiterated the Intelligence Community’s position first announced in March that ‘nearly all’ member agencies, encompassing the FBI, CIA, and NSA, hold the view that COVID-19 was not the fruit of deliberate genetic manipulation, and must maintain the belief that it did not originate via a laboratory-adapted strain of the virus. The ODNI report, similar to its previous March report, has not ruled out the prospect that COVID-19 was undergoing scrutiny inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology and possibly leaked due to inadequate safety measures.
The report acknowledged that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had engaged in pathogen investigation and vaccine innovation in conjunction with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for the purpose of supporting public well-being initiatives. However, the report underscored that the coronaviruses that were utilized in these studies “were too genetically remote to have played a role in the development of SARS-CoV-2.”
The ODNI report soundly discarded accusations of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) concocting COVID-19 as a biological weapon. Additionally, the report expounded on the claim that three scientists working with coronaviruses at the Wuhan facility contracted COVID-19 just before the onset of the outbreak. The report stated that US Intelligence found that several Wuhan researchers became “mildly” unwell during the Fall of 2019.
According to the report, some of the symptoms exhibited by the ill Wuhan scientists were suggestive of COVID-19, while others were not. Additionally, the report conveyed that US Intelligence lacked knowledge regarding these individuals’ level of contact with live viruses. The report further stated that the data at hand neither endorses nor disapproves of the potential origins of the pandemic since the symptoms presented by the researchers could have been caused by a multitude of illnesses.
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