Emily Kopp<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Intelligence undermining the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic began naturally at a wet market has been buried for years despite a 2023 law requiring declassification, according to two new reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. government has for years concealed evidence that complicates the story of the pandemic\u2019s origin favored by some prominent members of the scientific community<\/a> \u2014 that it began with an animal the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market \u2014 according to two reports revealed for the first time in recent days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A December 2022 report<\/a> to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees first reported on Tuesday by the Washington Free Beacon<\/a> suggests the outbreak may have started earlier than the December 2019 outbreak at a wet market that some virologists argue served as the pandemic\u2019s epicenter<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seven service members who attended the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019 exhibited COVID-like signs or symptoms from the time period stretching from the opening of the games around Oct. 18, 2019, through Jan. 21, 2020 \u2014 the day before the first official U.S. COVID-19 case<\/a>. (RELATED: German Government Reportedly Concealed Intel That Wuhan Lab Leak Was \u201980 To 95%\u2019 Likely)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Blood tests seeking evidence the service members were infected with COVID-19 rather than another respiratory virus could not be taken because tests were not yet available. The report also cautions that there was no \u201cstatistically significant difference\u201d in COVID-19 cases at facilities where the athletes were stationed compared to other bases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\u00a0second June 2020 report<\/a>\u00a0revealed Monday shows that scientists with the Defense Intelligence Agency had assessed that the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes of COVID-19, bore signs of engineering and that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had the ability to conduct just such experiments, according to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by\u00a0U.S. Right to Know<\/a>. A 2022 scientific preprint<\/a> advancing the same point was dismissed by prominent virologists who have published influential papers dismissing the lab origin theory and advancing the wet market theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Namely, Scripps Research virologist Kristian Andersen, who has coauthored high impact papers on the wet market hypothesis and who briefed State Department analysts<\/a> that the virus was likely natural, dismissed the preprint<\/a> as \u201cso deeply flawed that it wouldn\u2019t pass kindergarten molecular biology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andersen privately discussed the COVID origins question with former White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci as early as January 2020 and began drafting an influential paper<\/a> soon after stating that any lab origin would be implausible. The paper argued a virologist would be unlikely to manipulate a novel backbone virus that has not been published in the scientific literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,\u201d the paper reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The newly revealed DIA presentation challenges the premise of Andersen\u2019s report, stating that the absence of backbone virus for SARS-CoV-2 in the scientific literature \u201conly indicates that it has not been published, not that it does not exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andersen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023<\/a> was passed unanimously and requires that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassify all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of COVID-19 \u201cwith redactions only as necessary to protect sources and methods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet the unclassified report produced by ODNI \u2014 released to the public in June 2023<\/a> \u2014 did not include any information about the DIA report. It stated only vaguely that most intelligence agencies assess the genome to be natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlmost all IC agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered,\u201d it states<\/a>. \u201cMost agencies assess that SARS CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ODNI has never clarified why it made the premature assertion in April 2020<\/a> that the virus was not engineered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report states that the virus could have been engineered using a technique called Golden Gate Assembly with tools used by virologists to splice genes and assemble genomes called Type II restriction enzymes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n