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Beijing stated that the report of the US intelligence community was based on China’s presumption of guilt and was “political manipulation.”
After a report accused Beijing of concealing key information about the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, China accused the US intelligence community of “political manipulation.”
US President Joe Biden said on Friday that after the US intelligence community expressed disbelief that it was a biological weapon, China had concealed “critical information” about the origin of the coronavirus-but there were still disagreements over whether it had escaped from the laboratory.
“Reports from the U.S. intelligence community show that the U.S. insists on taking the wrong path of political manipulation,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement.
“The intelligence community’s report is based on China’s presumption of guilt, and is only intended to be a scapegoat for China.”
According to the non-confidential summary of the intelligence report, the United States does not believe that Chinese officials knew about the virus before the pandemic first broke out. It has now caused 4.5 million deaths.
Biden said in a statement: “The key information about the origin of this epidemic exists in the People’s Republic of China, but from the very beginning, Chinese government officials have been trying to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from obtaining this information. .”.
“To this day, the People’s Republic of China [People’s Republic of China] Continue to reject calls for transparency and withhold information, even if the death toll from this epidemic continues to rise. “
U.S. intelligence agencies said that most agencies use “low confidence” to assess that it is not a genetic engineering. However, the community is still divided on the origin of the pathogen. Four agencies and the National Intelligence Committee believe that the possible explanation is natural contact with animals as a possible explanation, while one agency supports the laboratory leakage theory.
Analysts from the three institutions could not draw conclusions.
“The difference in analysis views mainly stems from how agencies measure intelligence reports and scientific publications, as well as intelligence and science gaps,” the summary said.
It added that the intelligence community and global scientists lack clinical samples or epidemiological data on the earliest COVID-19 cases.
Biden said that the United States will continue to cooperate with allies and urge Beijing to share more information and cooperate with the World Health Organization.
“We must provide a comprehensive and transparent account of this global tragedy. Nothing is acceptable,” he said.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated that, given the historical nature of the pandemic and the importance of informing the public while protecting its sources and methods, it will review the declassified part of the report in the near future.
Laboratory leaks fade
A heavily politicized visit by a WHO team in January also proved fruitless, and was criticized for lack of transparency and access. Beijing rejected calls from the United States and other countries for a new origin investigation.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the hypothesis of natural origin—that the virus appeared in bats and then might be transmitted to humans through intermediate species—was widely accepted.
But over time, scientists have been unable to find viruses that match the SARS-CoV-2 gene characteristics in bats or other animals. Researchers said that they are more willing to consider the leakage of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which carries bats. Coronavirus research.
However, recent scientific papers are turning the debate back on the origin of zoonotic diseases.
Researchers from China and the University of Glasgow published a paper in the journal Science, which found that “animal-to-human transmission of infected live animals is the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
In addition, a paper published in the journal Cell by 21 top virologists bluntly concluded: “There is currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has laboratory origin.”
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