Searched, searched, but did not find: US intelligence could not determine where the coronavirus came from

The US intelligence services failed to come to an unambiguous conclusion about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. They neither confirmed nor refuted the version of the mutation during the natural transmission of the virus from animal to person, nor the more scandalous version of the leak of the virus from a laboratory in China. Writes about it with the BBC.

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The Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported that US President Joe Biden received the report, but it did not contain information on the origin of the virus. In May, Biden instructed the intelligence community to check all leads and present their findings 90 days later.

The scouts presented a secret report to the president, but they never came to any consensus in favor of this or that version.

The report is expected to be partially declassified and published in a few days.

According to the Wall Street Journal, intelligence officers have never been able to gain access to several data sets that are stored in China.

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From the very beginning of the pandemic, the version of the natural origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus through animal-to-human transmission and mutations that the coronavirus could undergo when it got into a new environment for it prevailed among the scientific establishment.

Viruses inhabiting the organisms of bats were considered the most likely candidates; also in favor of this version was the fact that many of the first known cases at the end of 2019 were associated with the market in Wuhan.

However, scientists did not succeed in reconstructing the evolution of the virus, data also appeared that not all of the first cases were related to the poultry market, finally, the closest natural habitat of bats is located hundreds of kilometers from Wuhan, but the Wuhan Institute of Virology is located right there. ...

According to information collected by the State Department during the Donald Trump administration, the Wuhan Institute maintains secret ties with the Chinese army, and several of its employees went to the hospital with flu-like symptoms back in November 2019 (they are also typical for COVID-19).

All these circumstances, as well as the behavior of the Chinese authorities, who clearly did not disclose everything they knew to the world, led to the fact that the version of the intentional or unintentional leak of the virus from the laboratory, which at first seemed purely conspiracy theorist, began to look somewhat more plausible.

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In May, Biden was informed that the intelligence community had identified two main versions of the origin of the virus - natural through transmission from animals to humans and artificial with a leak from a laboratory. After this, the president ordered to study all available data and try to assess which version is better substantiated. At the same time, he said that two intelligence services were inclined towards the version of natural origin, and the third - about a leak from a laboratory.

A group of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in February this year, but their visit took place under the strict supervision of the Chinese authorities, and the scientists themselves said that they did not show them everything.

Chinese media, especially targeting foreign audiences, have written extensively about the US intelligence report in recent days, seeking to present it as part of an information war against China.

“US intelligence has an odious track record, and their so-called report tracing the origins is not based on facts and evidence, but only tailors fictitious “evidence” to the desired conclusion to incriminate China,” the Chinese English-language newspaper Global Times quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang as saying. Wenbin even before the contents of the report became known.

At the same time, China itself is diligently spreading all sorts of little-supported alternative versions of the origin of the virus, which boil down to the fact that it appeared outside the country.

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