US intelligence investigating if virus emerged from lab accident

The US intelligence community says it is trying to determine whether the coronavirus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology. Picture: AFP

The US intelligence community has revealed it is trying to determine whether the coronavirus ­escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began.

In an unusual public statement, the Office of the Director of ­National Intelligence said US ­intelligence agencies agreed with a wide scientific consensus that “the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified”. But ODNI, which co-ordinates the work of 17 spy agencies, said US ­intelligence “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”.

US intelligence agencies rarely discuss their work or conclusions publicly, and the ODNI statement marks a break from that pattern.

The Wall Street Journal and other US news organisations have previously reported that US intelligence agencies are assessing whether the virus might have ­escaped from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

China’s role in the spread of the virus has figured prominently in debates within the US, where more than one million people have been infected and some 61,000 have died. While experts in the US and elsewhere have faulted China for not sharing information about the outbreak more quickly, Donald Trump and his allies have often attacked Beijing when questioned about the administration’s own coronavirus response.

Republican senator Tom Cotton, from Arkansas, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has suggested for months that a lab accident could have led to the pandemic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly called ­attention to the possible involvement of the laboratory in Wuhan and ­has insisted that China allow outside experts into the lab.

No concrete evidence has emerged to support the lab theory, and the Chinese government has repeatedly denied it.

Senior US officials have previously acknowledged efforts to look into whether the virus may have escaped from the Wuhan ­facility, where scientists study bat coronaviruses as part of a global effort to understand viruses that could pose a danger to humans.

In mid-April, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US intelligence officials had taken a hard look at evidence regarding possible involvement by Chinese laboratories. “And I would just say at this point it’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. But we don’t know for certain,” he said.

Susan Miller, an ODNI spokeswoman, disputed that the investigation was prompted by a request from the White House or other parts of the administration or that it had received pressure to arrive at a ­specific conclusion.

“We take these allegations of political pressure very seriously and have seen no such actions to date. We have seen no evidence of this,” Ms Miller said.

Asked whether he agreed with the intelligence community’s conclusion that the virus was not man-made or genetically modified, the President said he hadn’t seen the report on the matter. It was unclear what report Mr Trump was referring to.

Many scientific experts who have studied the virus say it is highly unlikely that it escaped from the Wuhan lab, and that the pandemic almost certainly began as a result of humans being infected from animals. Some biosafety experts, however, have questioned the Wuhan lab’s safety procedures and have said it is possible that ­scientists there were studying the virus and it escaped.

Experts in virus transmission have said the novel coronavirus could have leapt from bats to ­humans directly or through an ­intermediate mammal in a variety of ways, including contact during hunting or transportation of animals. The genetic sequence of the virus bears a strong resemblance to other bat coronaviruses that have been previously detected.

Former US intelligence officials have said determining the precise origins of the virus ­outbreak will be extremely difficult, if not ­impossible.

The Wall Street Journal