The United States Secret Service this Friday declassified a classified report on possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the city where the first cases were discovered, and the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although some fragments remain censored, the report points to two alternative hypotheses and is inconclusive. Some US authorities believe the pandemic originated naturally, while others believe it was a laboratory product.
The release comes in line with legislation passed by Congress and signed by Biden last March that requires the government to provide congressmen within 90 days with the information available to the intelligence community about possible links between the Institute of Wuhan Virology (WIV) and the Origin of virus forward pandemic.
The report, prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, indicates from the outset that it does not address the merits of the two most likely scenarios for the origin of the pandemic, nor does it provide information about other biological facilities in Wuhan from the Institute of Virology.
Former President Donald Trump often used the origin of the disease as a dialectical weapon in confrontation with China. Biden has tried not to use this issue in the confrontation with China. The report comes at a time of tension between the two superpowers.
It said that in March the US intelligence community updated its analysis of key issues surrounding the origins of Covid to examine whether the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid, the result of a natural exposure was in an infected animal or a laboratory-related event. “All organisms continue to assume that both the natural origin and that associated with the laboratory remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” says the report, which summarizes the differing positions.
The National Intelligence Council and four other intelligence agencies estimate that the initial human infection was most likely caused by natural contact with an infected animal carrying SARS-CoV-2 or a close precursor, a virus likely more similar to SARS. 99% of the virus -CoV-2.
Instead, the Department of Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) consider a laboratory-related incident to be the most likely cause of the first human SARS-CoV-2 infection, albeit for different reasons.
For their part, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and another agency remain reluctant to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, believing that both hypotheses are based on important assumptions or run into problems with conflicting reports.
What “almost all” authorities agree on is that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically manipulated. Most organisms assume that it has not been adapted in the laboratory; although some point out that they cannot draw a conclusion on this. Of course, all organisms assume that SARS-CoV-2 was not designed as a biological weapon.
The report details available information from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, noting that intelligence agencies believe its scientists conducted extensive coronavirus research, including animal samples and genetic analysis, prior to the pandemic. “We continue to have no evidence that pre-pandemic research holdings contained SARS-CoV-2 or a close precursor, or direct evidence of a specific research-related incident involving pre-pandemic personnel that could have caused the Covid pandemic,” says the text.
The United States has concluded that some scientists at the institute genetically engineered coronaviruses using standard laboratory practices. However, there is no information to suggest that the Institute’s genetic engineering work involved SARS-CoV-2, a close progenitor, or a parent virus sufficiently related to have been the source of the pandemic.
The report adds that scientists at the Institute of Virology used genetic engineering to create chimeras or combinations of SARS-type coronaviruses, tried to clone other unrelated infectious viruses, and used reverse genetic cloning techniques on SARS-like coronaviruses. It also states that some of the coronavirus genetic engineering projects involved techniques that could make it difficult to detect intended changes. A 2017 dissertation by a WIV student showed that reverse genetic cloning techniques, standard techniques used in advanced molecular laboratories, left no traces of genetic modification of SARS-like coronaviruses, it said.
accident risk
The possibility of an accident is still very much alive in the report. Although there is no record of a specific biosafety incident leading to the pandemic, “some researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology likely failed to take appropriate biosafety precautions when handling virus-like coronaviruses, at least at times prior to the pandemic.” SARS , which increased the risk of accidental exposure to the viruses,” he says.
The brief report also tackles another sensitive issue, as required by the law passed in March, but without shedding too much light. Several researchers at the institute fell ill in the fall of 2019 with some symptoms consistent with Covid, although they were undiagnosed with the disease. “Intelligence agencies continue to believe that this information does not support or disprove any of the hypotheses about the origins of the pandemic, as the researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a range of diseases and some of the symptoms were inconsistent with Covid.”-19″, says the report.
US intelligence has no evidence that any of these researchers were hospitalized due to Covid symptoms. One of the researchers may have been hospitalized during this period for a non-respiratory illness, he notes.
The Chinese authorities, for their part, examined the institute in early 2020 and took blood samples from the scientists. The United States recalls that according to the World Health Organization’s public report of March 2021, staff at the institute, including Shi Zhengli, who heads the laboratory group conducting the coronavirus research, stated that all samples taken by laboratory staff were negative for antibodies to SARS-CoV -2 have been tested.
Although several researchers fell mildly ill in the fall of 2019, they found a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with associated symptoms other than Covid, and some of them were confirmed to have other illnesses, the report said text next. “Although some of these researchers had done research on animal respiratory viruses in the past, we cannot confirm whether any of them had handled live viruses in their work before becoming ill,” the text concludes, before a glossary of definitions.
The conclusion is that there is no conclusion.