The coronavirus, a mystery even for the intelligence services

An unclassified summary of the report, released today after the investigation ordered by Biden, showed that intelligence services are divided between the other two original theories, but there is consensus that the two are ” plausible “.

Four agencies of the intelligence community and the National Intelligence Council believe the virus has “probably” passed from an animal to a human.

Another agency showed “moderate confidence” that the first SARS-CoV-2 infection in a human may have been the result of an incident in a laboratory which “likely involved experimentation, handling of animals or sampling by the Wuhan Institute, ”the Chinese city where the first contagion occurred and triggered the pandemic, took over the CNN television network and reproduced the Europa Press news agency.

Three other agencies said they could not take a position on either theory without additional information.

Although the report does not provide any conclusive hypotheses, it dismissed the fact that the disease developed as a biological weapon and clarified that it is “unlikely” that it was genetically modified.

The investigation argues that it would need more information on the first days of the pandemic to provide “a more definitive explanation of the origin” of the virus and, in this sense, indicated that the international scientific community ” lack of “clinical samples or a” full understanding of epidemiological data “of early cases.

In this context, he criticized what he saw as a lack of political will from China to cooperate with international investigations, something he called necessary to “reach a conclusive assessment” on the origin of the virus. .

Following this finding, Biden lashed out at China, saying that “from the start” his government “has worked to prevent international researchers and members of the global public health community.” to access “critical” information on the origins of the pandemic.

“The world deserves answers and I will not rest until we get them,” said the president, who maintains the confrontation with the Asian power that his predecessor, Donald Trump, started.

The president stressed that he would continue “to put pressure on China to adhere to scientific norms and standards, including the exchange of information and data from the first days of the pandemic.”

China, for its part, assures that it was not aware of the coronavirus before the epidemic, as confirmed by the US intelligence report, and has systematically accused Washington of using the issue to compete with its government.