COVID-19 origin may never be definitively identified: US Intelligence Community assessment

Washington: The US Intelligence Community (IC) assesses that the origins of the novel coronavirus disease may never be definitively identified without additional information, the declassified summary of a report commissioned by US President Joe Biden revealed on Friday (August 27, 2021).

The origin of the deadly virus has been the subject of intense global scrutiny, with speculation swirling that the global pandemic may have been triggered by a leak at the Wuhan virology lab, which China has vocally denied. 

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

"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. 

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