US intel community remains ‘divided’ on COVID-19 origin

Intelligence agencies fail to shed light on whether the virus came from an infected animal or a Chinese laboratory.

The United States intelligence community [IC] is unable to agree on the origins of the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but there is agreement Chinese officials did not “have foreknowledge” of it before the 2019 outbreak, according to a report (PDF) released on Friday. In an attempt to determine where the virus came from and how it spread, questions that have drawn the ire of the Chinese government and have fuelled political debate in the US, President Joe Biden in May called on US intelligence agencies to dig further. “After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19,” the unclassified report released by the Director of National Intelligence concluded.