Covid origin how to#

We are all trying to figure out the right answer” and “There are different levels of certainty expressed at different sources” of information. He has also said, however, that “The intelligence community is still figuring out precisely where this virus began.

“There is a significant amount of evidence that this virus came from that laboratory in Wuhan.”.

“We are still trying to get an actual sample of the virus ” (i.e., the genuine index virus strain).

“We, collectively the world, still have not had access to the Chinese labs.”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who was head of the CIA until April 2018) said that in addition to the WIV, “There are multiple labs where the Chinese Communist Party is working on various levels of pathogens.” He has also made these statements: On April 5, British intelligence indicated that the features of SARS-CoV-2, as well as the extensive studies conducted in Wuhan on similar coronaviruses, rendered the “lab script” a “credible alternative view.” US intelligence officials said “there is no evidence the pandemic coronavirus was created in a laboratory as a potential bio-weapon or engineered,” but those words do not negate the possibility of a lab leak.Ī few days after that statement, nine officials from the current and former US intelligence and national security services who are familiar with the investigations in progress said the possibility that the pandemic was triggered by an accident at a research facility in Wuhan was “certainly real” and was “absolutely under scrutiny at the highest level.” Several weeks later, President Trump noted with “a high degree of confidence” that the outbreak emanated from the WIV, though he added that he could not reveal details. On the intelligence level, however, evidence was being accumulated that gave credence to the possibility of a Chinese lab leak. Concrete evidence beyond the circumstantial was not offered, which discredited the theory. Tom Cotton amplified the lab virus theory on February 17, when he said the virus might have leaked from the WIV. Francis Boyle claimed on February 2 that the virus had been held at the WIV as a bioweapon and leaked from its lab. Her object was to develop vaccines, anti-sera, and other countermeasures to guard against the spreading COVID-19 virus. In Wuhan, she collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and Wuhan-based academic institutions. Wei Chen, a prominent Chinese biological warfare expert affiliated with the military’s Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, was appointed head of the WIV wing, which is at biosafety level 4 (the highest level). A lab leak might have occurred via an accidentally infected worker, an infected lab animal, or a technical failure.

Whether or not the WIV’s labs, civilian or otherwise, were holding the COVID-19 virus, it could be an intact natural virus strain. In January 2020, the WIV was identified as a facility from which SARS-CoV-2 had possibly leaked. In 2019, the WIV was involved in the improper dispatch of highly virulent viruses (not coronaviruses) from Canada to China, which bolstered that case. In 2015, an article in Journal of Defence Studies profiled the Chinese biological warfare program and noted that the WIV, basically a civilian facility, dealt with certain pathogens, including the SARS virus. This claim was later abandoned by China.Īn alternative possibility is that the virus-whether natural, man-made, or otherwise modified-leaked from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) or another Wuhan-based facility.

At the time, the initial source of the virus was said to have been an unidentified infected animal from the Wuhan wet market. However, it was not until Decemthat the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued an alert that there was a cluster of cases of “viral pneumonia” in Wuhan.

According to unofficial reports and taking into account the virus’s incubation period, Patient Zero was apparently infected in Wuhan, China in October or November of 2019. SARS-CoV-2 is the strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19. These questions will likely be answered through synergies between science and intelligence, the combined findings of which will ultimately converge into a critical mass of evidence.

Covid origin how to#

Both science and intelligence will contribute to uncovering the evidence needed to answer these questions conclusively.īehind the great challenge of how to deal with the global COVID-19 pandemic are the questions of the virus’s true genomic origin and direct source. 1,664, July 28, 2020ĮXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The questions of the true genomic origin as well as the direct source of the initial SARS-CoV-2 strain that infected Patient Zero in China, an event that ultimately unleashed COVID-19 on the world to devastating effect, are hotly debated and highly consequential.