US reveals declassified report on origins of coronavirus pandemic

By: Natalie Brown

A declassified US intelligence report has reignited debate over whether China bears responsibility for the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) report, analysts at an unnamed intelligence agency believe the “dangerous nature” of the science being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), coupled with a lack of safety precautions, led to the coronavirus first jumping from animals to humans.

“Although the [intelligence community] has no indications that WIV research involved SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes Covid-19] or a close progenitor virus, these analysts note that it is plausible that researchers may have unwittingly exposed themselves to the virus without sequencing it during experiments or sampling activities, possibly resulting in asymptomatic or mild infection,” the report said.

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