COVID-19 origins cannot be identified without more information: US Intelligence report

A US report, on Friday, revealed that the origins of the novel coronavirus may never be definitively identified without additional information. The conclusion assessed by the US Intelligence Community (IC) was put forth by the declassified summary of a report commissioned by US President Joe Biden.

The US report was assessed with the intention of resolving disputes among intelligence agencies considering different theories about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus has emerged, including a once-dismissed theory about a Chinese laboratory accident. 

US report on the origins of COVID-19 indecisive

Ever since the first case of COVID-19 was reported, the origin of the deadly virus had become a subject of global interest. While many speculations took form, a few countries, including the USA, formed committees to investigate the same. The most common speculation was regarding a possible leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which Beijing has since denied.

In May, President Biden issued a directive to the IC, made up of 17 main US intelligence agencies, to study and form a report on the origins of COVID-19 within 90 days.

With the deadline for submitting the report ended this week, the IC has now demanded more time to pinpoint on a certain scenario. "The IC judges said they will be unable to provide a more definitive explanation for the origin of COVID-19 unless new information allows them to determine the specific pathway for initial natural contact with an animal or to determine that a laboratory in Wuhan was handling SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor virus before COVID-19 emerged," the IC concluded, according to the summary.

China accuses US of ‘politicising’ COVID-19 report

Ahead of the US intelligence community report's release, China came forward to criticise the US for “politicising” the effort. China, which has always been accused of having a major player in the COVID-19 pandemic scenario, demanded that a US military laboratory be investigated just like the ones in Wuhan.

Fu Cong, the director-general of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ arms control department, told a news briefing on Wednesday, “Scapegoating China cannot whitewash the US. It is only fair that if the US insists that this is a valid hypothesis, they should do their turn and invite the investigation into their labs.”

It is worth noting that China has repeatedly denied all claims of a laboratory leak as the coronavirus' origin. The country has ridiculed the theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, where COVID-19 emerged in late 2019, setting off the pandemic. China has instead suggested that the virus slipped out of a lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, US, in 2019 and asked the World Health Organization for an investigation into US labs.