Coronavirus origin will remain unknown without China’s help: US report

The United States intelligence community, which is investigating the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that led to the COVID-19 pandemic, said it cannot resolve the mystery behind the virus and it may remain indefinite without China‘s help and additional information. 

“China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19,” said the panel in a declassified summary on Friday. They further added that they need information that only China can provide them, reported Reuters.

US President Joe Biden, who ordered the probe, received the report summarising the investigation he ordered this week, said Washington adding that its allies will continue to press China for necessary answers.

Biden issued a statement saying that China continues to hinder the investigation behind the origin of coronavirus and answers are needed.

“Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in the People’s Republic of China, yet from the beginning, government officials in China have worked to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from accessing it,” Biden said in a statement after the summary was released.

In May, Biden issued a directive to the 17 main US intelligence agencies, which make up the Intelligence Community, to deliver a report on the origins of COVID-19 within 90 days.

According to the report summary, the US intelligence agencies remain divided on the origins of the coronavirus. Some say with low confidence that the virus was initially transmitted from an animal to a human while another agency says that the virus origin was linked to a lab but believe China’s leaders did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Embassy in the US capital issued a statement countering the report and said that it “wrongly” claimed that China continued to hinder the investigation adding that “a report fabricated by the US intelligence community is not scientifically credible.”

The origin of the coronavirus, which has killed over 4.6 people worldwide, has been a topic of scrutiny since its advent. Several reports claiming that the virus was leaked from a Chinese lab prompted the World Health Organization to conduct a probe on the virus source.

The WHO report, however, found no evidence linked to China’s deliberate attempt to leak the virus or whether the information was cautiously held back.