Covid Virus Origins Are Still Unknown, US Intelligence Chiefs Say

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(Bloomberg) — US intelligence agencies maintain there’s still no consensus on the origins of the Covid-19 virus, despite some differences in confidence levels that Republicans have sought to use as political cudgel against the Biden administration.

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“All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible explanations for the origin of Covid-19: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a report presented Wednesday for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. 

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Intelligence agencies continue to investigate how the virus first infected humans, according to the assessment, which is unchanged from last year.

Republicans have been trying to exploit divisions between US agencies over the origins of the virus following recent disclosure of an Energy Department assessment that the virus was the result of a lab leak, even though that conclusion was given a “low confidence” rating. 

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FBI Director Christopher Wray, who will testify at Wednesday’s hearing, told Fox News last week that “the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

China has rejected the idea of a lab leak, and the scientific consensus has been that the pandemic began when the coronavirus jumped from animals to people. The World Health Organization said all hypotheses for the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic are still on the table. 

The lack of transparency from China’s government, however, means “that we may never be absolutely certain where Covid-19, or God forbid, the next pandemic, could have, or will next, originate,” Senate Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner said during the hearing. 

“That these questions are even necessary is a testament to the failings of the Chinese system and stands in contrast to the openness of our own public health officials during the pandemic,” said Warner, a Virginia Democrat.

(Updates with comments from Senator Warner starting in the seventh paragraph)