US Intelligence Community releases statement on origins of COVID-19
A statement was released today by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the USA on the origins of COVID-19. In the statement it's written, "The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China." They go on to agree with "wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified."
It's a strange world we live in that such a thing would need to be confirmed. However, here we are, with an official statement from the official office of the Director of National Intelligence in the United States government. If you've only ever heard that COVID-19 appeared first in human contact with infected animals, you might be in for a shock.
"As we do in all crises, the Community's experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security," the statement went on to say. "The IC 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."
This statement was posted in a screenshot of a document to Twitter (as you'll see above) as well as through the official DNI dot GOV government website.
The Research
In March of 2020, researchers concluded the same thing as the U.S. Intelligence Community stated today, that COVID-19 was not man-made. "By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," Kristian Andersen, PhD, associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research in a Science Daily release. Research found the SARS-CoV-2 mollecular structure (backbone) "different substantially from those of already known coronaviruses" and resembled instead viruses found in bats and pangolins.
"These two features of the virus, the mutations in the RBD portion of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2," said Andersen.