The CIA and other US intelligence agencies have not found any evidence directly linking COVID-19 to the laboratory in Wuhan, China. This is stated in a report published Friday.
The services write that they do not have any information that confirms the theory that recently emerged. That theory says that three scientists from the Wuhan virology laboratory were among the first to become infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Scientists at that lab have performed genetic manipulations on coronaviruses resembling COVID-19; Washington does not know the same actions on COVID-19 or any closely related strain.
Although genetic engineering is ruled out in the report by the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the various intelligence services are still divided on two theories: a natural origin of the pandemic, for example, through animal transmission, or an accidental outbreak in the lab. The coronaviruses studied in the lab in Wuhan “were too distant to have played a role in the creation of SARS-CoV-2,” the document says, which rejects the hypothesis of a biological weapon.
The report comes three months after US lawmakers demanded more information about what intelligence agencies know about the origins of the coronavirus. It is suspected within the scientific world that the virus was transmitted to humans from a wild animal.