U.S. intelligence agencies remain divided over likely Covid origin, new report shows

A long-anticipated authorities study connected the origins of Covid-19 offered caller details connected the U.S. quality community's findings but did not authorities definitively whether the root of the coronavirus was vulnerability to an infected carnal oregon an lawsuit astatine a laboratory.

"All agencies proceed to measure that some a earthy and laboratory-associated root stay plausible hypotheses to explicate the archetypal quality infection," the 10-page declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

The study laid retired divisions wrong the Intelligence Community.

While the National Intelligence Council and 4 unnamed agencies recovered that earthy vulnerability to an infected carnal was astir likely, the Department of Energy and FBI's appraisal was that a laboratory-associated incidental was the much apt script for the archetypal quality infection.

Meanwhile, the CIA and an unidentified bureau "remain incapable to find the precise root of the COVID-19 pandemic, arsenic some hypotheses trust connected important assumptions oregon look challenges with conflicting reporting," the study states.

But "almost all" quality agencies agreed that the microorganism wasn't genetically engineered, and each agencies agreed that Covid was not manufactured arsenic a biologic weapon.

Congress passed legislation earlier this twelvemonth requiring the quality assemblage to declassify accusation relating to imaginable links betwixt the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the pandemic's origins.

The study shed airy connected the Wuhan institute, which has been astatine the halfway of a proposal that the microorganism escaped from a laboratory and began infecting radical oregon was transmitted to humans from an animal.

In 2021, a U.S. quality study identified 3 researchers astatine the Wuhan Institute of Virology who sought attraction astatine a infirmary aft falling sick successful November 2019 -- providing inconclusive, circumstantial grounds that appeared to bolster a proposal that the microorganism whitethorn person dispersed to humans after escaping from the lab.

The quality assemblage successful March expanded its enquiry into Covid-19, by examining whether the archetypal quality corruption with the microorganism was the effect of earthy vulnerability to an infected carnal oregon a lab-linked incident, according to Friday's report.

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said the report's merchandise reflects a committedness from President Joe Biden "to declassify and stock arsenic overmuch accusation arsenic imaginable related to the origins of COVID-19, portion protecting sources and methods." The spokesperson added that "getting to the bottommost of the origins" of Covid remains a apical precedence for the president.