Members of Congress now have access to the declassified COVID-19 origins report that was made available by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) today released ‘The Potential Links Between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic’ report,” a statement from the ODNI reads. “The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 required the Intelligence Community to declassify information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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The report was drafted by the National Intelligence Officer for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation and coordinated with the IC. The report mentioned that it does not address the merits of the two most likely pandemic origins hypotheses, nor does it explore other biological facilities in Wuhan other than the WIV.
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The Intelligence Community (IC) released the following assessment.
The National Intelligence Council and four other IC agencies assess that the initial human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was caused by natural exposure to an infected animal that carried SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to SARSCoV-2.
The Department of Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation assess that a laboratory-associated incident was the most likely cause of the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2, although for different reasons.
The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.
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Almost all IC agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered. Most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination. All IC agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon.
The report added that prior to the pandemic, WIV scientists conducted extensive research on coronaviruses, which included animal sampling and genetic analysis. The IC continues to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARSCoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic, it added.
