International

US Intelligence Remains Divided On Covid-19 Origin, Can't Rule Out Lab-Origin: Report

US intelligence agencies still could not rule out the possibility that the Covid-19 virus came from a laboratory, however, and had not been able to discover the origins of the pandemic.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
The Covid-19 virus spreads primarily through saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
info_icon

US has said that there is no direct evidence that the Covid-19 virus originated from a Wuhan lab.

According to the Reuters report, US intelligence agencies have found no direct evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“The four-page report said the intelligence agencies still could not rule out the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory, however, and had not been able to discover the origins of the pandemic,” the report said.

"The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, as both (natural and lab) hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting," the report said.

It added: “The agencies said that while extensive work had been conducted on coronaviruses at the Wuhan institute (WIV), they had not found evidence of a specific incident that could have caused the outbreak.”

"We continue 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-19 pandemic," the report said.