WASHINGTON, June 24. /TASS/. The US intelligence has no information proving that any incident in the Wuhan Institute of Virology has led to the coronavirus pandemic, says the intelligence report, handed over to the US Congress Friday.
"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 pandemic," the document reads. Its unclassified redacted version was published by the US Office of the Direction of National Intelligence.
"All [intelligence community] agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon," the report reads.
"The National Intelligence Council and four other IC agencies assess that the initial human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was caused by natural exposure to an infected animal that carried SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, a virus that probably would be more than 99% similar to SARSCoV-2," the document says.
"The Department of Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation assess that a laboratory-associated incident was the most likely cause of the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2, although for different reasons," the authors say. "The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting. Almost all IC agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered."
The document was presented in connection to the congressional bill, signed by US President Joe Biden, which obliged the executive branch to declassify available information on the coronavirus origin.