U.S. Intelligence Community Releases Declassified Report on Origins of Covid-19, Finds No Direct Evidence of Lab-Associated Origin

The U.S. intelligence community has released a 10-page declassified report on the origins of Covid-19, offering new details on their findings but not definitively stating whether the source of the virus was exposure to an infected animal or an event at a laboratory.

The report, mandated by legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in March, looked specifically at potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not make an assessment of the likelihood the outbreak began there.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Friday that all agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection.

The report found no direct evidence of a “biosafety incident” or of the pre-pandemic presence of the virus that causes COVID-19 at a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The National Intelligence Council and four unnamed agencies assessed that natural exposure to an infected animal was the most likely scenario for the first human infection.

The report also noted that the intelligence community has not seen evidence that the virus was released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology intentionally or accidentally. The report also found that the Chinese government has not been fully transparent in its response to the pandemic, and that there is still much to learn about the virus and its origins.