TNI Bureau: According to a study issued on Monday by US Republicans, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic escaped from a Chinese research facility, a conclusion that US intelligence services have not reached.
The report also stated “ample evidence” that Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) scientists were attempting to alter coronaviruses to infect people, with the assistance of US specialists and Chinese and US government funds, and that such manipulation might be concealed.
The Republican staff report was issued by Representative Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It called for a bipartisan inquiry into the causes of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of 4.4 million individuals globally.
A prominent but unconfirmed opinion among some specialists is that a genetically engineered coronavirus leaked from a facility in Wuhan, where the first Covid-19 cases were identified in 2019. China denies this. Beijing also denies any cover-up claims.
Others believe the pandemic was triggered by an animal virus that was likely spread to people at a seafood market near the WIV.
The report stated what it termed “new and under-reported information” concerning the lab’s safety protocols, including a request for a $1.5 million revamp of the facility’s hazardous waste treatment system, which was less than two years old, in July 2019.
The top US intelligence agency declared in April that the virus was neither man-made or genetically engineered, and that it agreed with the scientific consensus. In May, US President Joe Biden directed US intelligence services to speed up their search for the virus’s origins and report back in 90 days.