Intelligence officials believe that a thorough study of the start of the pandemic could be important to improve the global response to future health crises, although they warn that finding an answer about the source of the virus may be difficult or even impossible given China’s opposition to further research The responsibility lies with explaining how the pandemic, which has killed nearly seven million people, began, scientists say, and a closer look at its origins could help researchers understand what poses the greatest threat of future outbreaks.
New intelligence and a shift in the department’s views were first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday
Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, declined to confirm the intelligence. But he said President Biden had ordered national labs to be involved in efforts to determine the origin of the outbreak so that the government would use “every tool at its disposal.”
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In addition to the Department of Energy, the FBI has also concluded with moderate certainty that the virus first emerged by accident from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses. Four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded that the virus most likely originated from natural transmission, the director of the Office of National Intelligence said. announced October 2021.
Mister. Sullivan said those differences remain.
“There are different points of view in the intelligence community,” he said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union program. “Some elements of the intelligence community came to conclusions on the one hand, some on the other. Some of them said they just didn’t have enough information to be sure.”