The COVID-19 pandemic was “likely” started by an “unintentional” leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, a US probe has concluded. The 300-page report explaining this determination is understood to be the full version of a 35-page summary that was published last October by the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The document went on to suggest that the theory that COVID-19 jumped from animals to humans at a wet market no longer merited “the presumption of accuracy.” However, the report fell short of reaching a “definitive” conclusion on the origins of the pandemic either way.
The report said: “The COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.
“New information, made publicly available and independently verifiable, could change this assessment.
“However, the hypothesis of a natural zoonotic origin no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, or the presumption of accuracy.
“The preponderance of information affirms the plausibility of a research-related incident that was likely unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research.”
US intelligence — and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the scientific community — have been divided as to whether COVID-19 was triggered by a natural, “zoonotic”, spillover event from wild animals being sold at a wet market in Wuhan, or whether it stemmed from a lab leak.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is located in the city’s Jiangxia District, is known to have been collecting and manipulating bat viruses prior to the outbreak.
According to the committee’s report, three years since the pandemic’s onset have failed to yield conclusive evidence of a zoonotic origin.
In fact, the report went on to argue that advocates of the natural spillover hypothesis need “provide clear and convincing evidence” in support of their argument.
The Senate committee is not the only US Governmental organisation to assert that COVID-19 had its origins in a laboratory leak.
Last month, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray said: “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”
The US Department of Energy — which administers 17 laboratories across the US conducting biological research — has reached the same conclusion, albeit with what they referred to as “low confidence”.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), meanwhile, is understood to be more on the fence, with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan last month saying there was not at present “a definitive answer”.
He elaborated: “Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other, and a number have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”
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