U.S. still hasn't ruled out lab accident origin for Covid because China hasn't been transparent
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON — Despite a finding by the World Health Organization that the Covid-19 outbreak in China most likely first infected humans through an animal host, the United States is still not ruling out the possibility of a laboratory accident, as officials continue to sort through intelligence about the Chinese government’s initial handling of the outbreak, American and Western officials told NBC News.
A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told NBC News the agency is standing by a public statement it issued in April, which said that that American intelligence agencies "will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."
U.S. officials have not made public any evidence pointing to a lab accident, and most scientists who have studied the matter said that such a scenario is unlikely. But Biden administration officials have faulted China in recent days for what they have termed a lack of transparency around the origins of the virus. And they have criticized how the WHO last week presented the initial findings of a visit to Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have emerged.
WHO investigators, after visiting three labs in Wuhan, said last week they found no signs that a lab accident could have caused the outbreak. One WHO researcher told reporters at a news conference the organization was halting any further inquiry into that theory.
But the director general of the WHO appeared to walk back that definitive statement a few days later, saying that "all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and study."
A Western intelligence official who has seen classified material told NBC News the U.S. has substantial intelligence that has not been made public about actions the Chinese government took — related to the Wuhan lab and other issues — that were designed to obscure the origins of Covid-19 and conceal its early impact. A former U.S. official who has also seen the intelligence agreed that it was significant, if inconclusive.
Both sources said the material, which they did not detail, did not add up to evidence that a lab accident occurred. But they said it raised enough circumstantial questions that analysts have been unable to rule out the lab scenario. U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment.
The intelligence, which includes documents, paints a picture of a Chinese government initially trying to hide the burgeoning pandemic from the outside world.
There is no doubt that, especially when Covid-19 first hit but even today, China is falling far short of the mark when it comes to providing the information necessary to the international community," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told NBC's Andrea Mitchell this month. "All of the — that lack of transparency, that lack of being forthcoming, is a profound problem and it's one that continues."
The so-called lab theory refers to a hypothesis that the Covid outbreak emerged in Wuhan as a result of an accidental release from one of the labs working with coronaviruses in that city — perhaps from an improper disposal of lab waste or an employee who got infected at work and then infected others.
U.S. intelligence agencies and scientists say they have ruled out that Covid-19 was human-made or intentionally released. The lab theory hypothesizes an accidental release of a virus found in nature by researchers and brought in for study.
Scientists say that scenario is unlikely on its face, because animal-to-human transmission of viruses are common, while lab accidents are relatively rare. The key scientists studying viruses in Wuhan say they were not studying the Covid-19 virus, which had not been previously documented in nature before the outbreak.
Intelligence officials counter that one key lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, removed from public view a database of 22,000 virus samples for security reasons, and has not allowed a detailed look at the lab's notes or other records.
They say it's suspicious that the virus outbreak arose in Wuhan, a hub of virus research in China, while the bats that commonly carry coronaviruses are typically found in caves a thousand miles from that city.
They note that scientists also have not found a host animal that could have transferred the virus to humans, after a year of looking.
The Washington Post, in an editorial last week, called the lab leak theory "plausible," and said it "must be investigated."
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, "should provide all records regarding bat samples, viruses and sequences, with verified information provenance, and eventually, it should be disclosed to all," the editorial said. "The origin of the pandemic is of interest to every person on the globe."
WHO researchers acknowledged last week that the "wet" or live-animal market in Wuhan, which was originally thought to be a likely source of the outbreak, may not be the whole story, since early cases have been identified in people who had no connection to the market.
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The Biden admin deserves credit for not rolling over and blindly accepting the results of the stage managed WHO investigation.
It would be one of the greatest coincidences in history if the virus just happened to make the jump to humans blocks from where it was being studied.
Given the trauma this virus has caused the world, it's incredibly discouraging the cause of the outbreak hasn't been subject to a full, fair and open investigation. Instead, as the AP reports, " the Chinese government is strictly controlling all research into its origins, clamping down on some while actively promoting fringe theories that it could have come from outside China.”
Everyone with a functioning brain knows happened, and continues to happen, in Wuhan.
The Chinese government's suppression of its own medical experts, hiding or destroying files and samples, and lack of cooperation with the sharing medical evidence, just proves the extent of their cover up.
well here is some food for thought thats going to hurt an awful lot of feelings all around .
personally i think this virus is here with us to stay much like the common flu .
and it likely was already here and laying dormant in permafrost somewhere and took a simple few degrees of warming to resurrect it from dormancy, be it naturally or while it was being studied somewhere in a lab.
Riiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhtttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You do remember your biology Mark.....!
It is quite possible (almost certain) that with the warming of the permafrost regions, there will be viral strains that have been dormant for 50,000 years or more that modern man has lost their immunity to.
I agree.... The Corona virus and it's mutations is here to stay to cull out the human herd.
life imitating art? how many movies have suggested such culling the human herd?
agent smith said it best in the first matrix to neo, humanity is a virus , i will add its a parasitic virus that isnt a good parasite, and about the only thing saving the universe is the fact we havent been able to leave this chunk of space rock and colonize other planets, not from a lack of trying though.
another little fact "humanity" disregards is that on this little chunk of rock , better than 99% of all known life forms that have developed here , have gone extinct , yet somehow , humanity thinks they are exempt from it.
Something else i remember is that conditions have to be exactly right for some things to happen , I remember Dowser talking about fossils , and that they have to have exactly the right conditions to form , i simply extend that thought to other things and allow for that possability.
It's been over a year. The Chinese government has had plenty of time to destroy all the evidence including doctors brave enough to talk. The WHO and the left wing American msm has been totally complicit.
That's just crazy talk
Yes, and the Illuminati and the Deep State and the Jedi made a deal with the New World Order to keep this grand conspiracy hidden. Please be serious...
Nothing to see there. Got it.
Yeah. From day one they've been engaged in a cover up.
It appears that there a lot of pandemic deniers who refuse to accept the science and the reality of Coivid-19 origin and spread.
Yes, it appears so.
Evidence shows that it was Russia and Putin that designed COVID, then released into China.
Source/Link?
Everyone knows it.
State Department: China Working With Russia to Spread Coronavirus Disinformation
It is a joint operation.
You mean some Russian agent released it just down the street from the virus lab in Wuhan?
Prove they didn't.
Fucking dummies who don't realize it was the deep state that created it and let in loose in china in a effort to make trump look bad. What a bunch of tools amiright?
"Intelligence officials counter that one key lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, removed from public view a database of 22,000 virus samples for security reasons, and has not allowed a detailed look at the lab’s notes or other records.
They say it’s suspicious that the virus outbreak arose in Wuhan, a hub of virus research in China, while the bats that commonly carry coronaviruses are typically found in caves a thousand miles from that city."
Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Source?
Source for "they say"?
I can't wait to hear Sean's response.
It’s directly from the seed.
tough look for you.
I can't wait to hear Sean's response.
Was it everything you hoped it would be?
And so much less! The sources were not identified.
"Source for "they say"?
I can't wait to hear Sean's response."
Can't say one way or the other, but the Chinese govt. being total assholes doesn't help.
Heard about this subject this morning on NPR. They had a person from the committee that went to China.
There was no credible link between the Virus and the lab.
If that’s the case, why is China Destroying evidence and refusing to cooperate? If you can’t examine evidence, how can anyone make that declaration?
The current head of The WHO handpicked by China, covered up cholera outbreaks in his country. The idea that politics aren’t driving what The WHO reports is naive, at best.