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Biden admin releases nothingburger declassified report on COVID origins in Friday news dump

June 24, 2023 | | Print Article

In typical fashion, the Biden administration’s Director of National Intelligence released a wholly inadequate declassified report on the origins of COVID in a Friday news dump, basically saying they have no idea where the virus originated with lots of fluff thrown in for good measure.

The report was titled, “Potential Links Between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The report was supposed to be released last Sunday, June 18, but President Biden missed the deadline. As pressure mounted, the administration evidently decided they had to release something so they punted and issued a report that pretty much says nothing new.

The 9-page report includes a cover page, table of contents, executive summary, and three pages of definitions, so it’s really only four pages long. It claims that all agencies of the government “continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection.” It appears to be a clear move to placate China.

The report shows that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army.

“Although the WIV is independent of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the IC [intelligence community] assesses that WIV personnel have worked with scientists associated with the PLA on public health-related research and collaborated on biosafety and biosecurity projects. Information available to the IC indicates that some of the research conducted by the PLA and WIV included work with several viruses, including coronaviruses, but no known viruses that could plausibly be a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2. For example, PLA researchers have used WIV laboratories for virology and vaccine-related work,” the report laid out.

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It also, unsurprisingly, showed that the Chinese lab worked extensively with bats and coronaviruses.

“The WIV probably maintains one of the world’s largest repositories of bat samples, which has enabled its coronavirus research and related public health support. Information available to the IC indicates that the WIV first possessed SARS-CoV-2 in late December 2019, when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes,” the report noted.

“In 2013, the WIV collected animal samples from which they identified the bat coronavirus RaTG13, which is 96.2 percent similar to the COVID-19 virus. By 2018, the WIV had sequenced almost all of RaTG13, which is the second closest known whole genome match to SARS-CoV-2, after BANAL-52, which is 96.8 percent similar. Neither of these viruses is close enough to SARS-CoV-2 to be a direct progenitor,” it continued.

“Since 2019, some WIV researchers analyzed pangolin samples to better understand disease outbreaks in these animals. By the end of 2019, the WIV maintained distinct teams focused on MERS and SARS-related coronaviruses. Both teams separately used transgenic mouse models to better understand how the viruses infect humans as well as related vaccine and therapeutics research. The WIV then shifted to support broader public health efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020,” the report added.

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The researchers involved in WIV’s projects also conducted genetic engineering of coronaviruses, “Scientists at the WIV have created chimeras, or combinations, of SARS-like coronaviruses through genetic engineering, attempted to clone other unrelated infectious viruses, and used reverse genetic cloning techniques on SARS-like coronaviruses.”

“Some of the WIV’s genetic engineering projects on coronaviruses involved techniques that could make it difficult to detect intentional changes. A 2017 dissertation by a WIV student showed that reverse genetic cloning techniques—which are standard techniques used in advanced molecular laboratories—left no traces of genetic modification of SARS-like coronaviruses,” the report elaborated.

It expounded on the already known fact that precautions at the lab were severely lacking, “Nearly a year after the accreditation of the WIV’s BSL-4 laboratory in 2017, China’s decisions of which pathogens required higher biocontainment protocols remained opaque, while the facility had a shortage of appropriately trained personnel…”

“As of January 2019, WIV researchers performed SARS-like coronavirus experiments in BSL-2 laboratories, despite acknowledgments going back to 2017 of these virus’ ability to directly infect humans through their spike protein and early 2019 warnings of the danger of this practice. Separately, the WIV’s plan to conduct analysis of potential epidemic viruses from pangolin samples in fall 2019, suggests the researchers sought to isolate live viruses,” the report stated.

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“An inspection of the WIV’s high-containment laboratories in 2020—only months after the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak’s emergence—identified a need to update aging equipment, a need for additional disinfectant equipment, and improvements to ventilation systems. As this inspection occurred in the midst of the WIV’s crisis response to the COVID-19 outbreak, these findings are not necessarily indicative of WIV’s biosafety status prior to the outbreak,” it asserted.

Concerning the three scientists who fell ill in late 2019, the report contended, “We have no indications that any of these researchers were hospitalized because of the symptoms consistent with COVID-19. One researcher may have been hospitalized in this timeframe for treatment of a non-respiratory medical condition.”

“China’s National Security Commission investigated the WIV in early 2020 and took blood samples from WIV researchers. According to the World Health Organization’s March 2021 public report, WIV officials including Shi Zhengli—who leads the WIV laboratory group that conducts coronavirus research—stated lab employee samples all tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies,” the authors recounted.

“While several WIV researchers fell mildly ill in Fall 2019, they experienced a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with COVID-19, and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with other illnesses unrelated to COVID-19. While some of these researchers had historically conducted research into animal respiratory viruses, we are unable to confirm if any of them handled live viruses in the work they performed prior to falling ill,” the report claimed.

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The one thing that the report did make clear was that our intelligence agencies don’t agree on where the virus came from.

“The National Intelligence Council and four other IC agencies assess that the initial human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was caused by natural exposure to an infected animal that carried SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to SARSCoV-2,” it revealed.

“The Department of Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation assess that a laboratory-associated incident was the most likely cause of the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2, although for different reasons,” it also noted. “The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.”

The Republican chairs of the House Intelligence Committee and a select subcommittee responded to the report after it was released. They jointly said they had gathered abundant information in favor of the lab leak hypothesis. Reps. Mike Turner and Brad Wenstrup, both from Ohio, praised the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence for taking a “promising step toward transparency.”

“While we appreciate the report from ODNI, the corroboration of all available evidence along with further investigation into the origins of COVID-19 must continue,” Turner and Wenstrup asserted, according to The Washington Times.

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist who has long argued the virus could have originated in the Wuhan lab, pointed out that the report did not include the names of researchers who fell ill or other details mandated by Congress.

“It’s getting very difficult to believe that the government is not trying to hide what they know about #OriginOfCovid when you see a report like this that contains none of the requested info,” Chan tweeted.

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