An unclassified version of an intelligence community assessment on the origins of COVID-19 released Friday afternoon shows that various agencies still don’t agree on whether the pandemic began from a laboratory incident in Wuhan, China, or was caused by a natural crossover from animals to humans.
In the spring, President Biden ordered the intelligence community to conduct a 90-day review looking at the pandemic’s origins in China, amid growing debate and questions on the issue. The virus has now killed some 5 million people around the world, and infected almost a quarter of a billion, while disrupting global economies.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty