U.S. Spy Agencies Give Up, Say COVID-19 Origins May Never Be Known

US intelligence agencies said they may never be able to identify the origins of COVID-19 as they released a new, more detailed version of their review on whether the coronavirus came from animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a lab.

Photo Insert: The Office of the US Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a declassified report that a natural origin and a lab leak are both plausible hypotheses for how SARS-COV-2 first infected humans.

The Office of the US Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a declassified report that a natural origin and a lab leak are both plausible hypotheses for how SARS-COV-2 first infected humans.

But it said analysts disagree on which is more likely or whether any definitive assessment can be made at all, Mark Hosenball and Patricia Zengerle reported for Reuters.

The report also dismissed suggestions that the coronavirus originated as a bioweapon, saying proponents of this theory "do not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology" and have been accused of spreading disinformation.

The report issued on Friday is an update of a 90-day review that President Joe Biden's administration released in August, amid intense political infighting over how much to blame China for the effects of the global pandemic rather than governments that may not have moved quickly enough to protect citizens.

China responded on Friday by criticizing the report. "The US moves of relying on its intelligence apparatus instead of scientists to trace the origins of COVID-19 is a complete political farce," Liu Pengyu, a Chinese embassy spokesperson stressed in an emailed statement.

"It will only undermine science-based origins study and hinder the global effort of finding the source of the virus," the statement added.

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