The US Defence Intelligence Agency has said that the Novel Coronavirus may have originated in a lab in Wuhan and may have been accidentally released into the open.
The US Intelligence updated its assessment on March 27, a day after the US overtook China as being the most affected nation dealing with the virus. Earlier in January, they had dismissed rumours that this virus had originated in a lab in Wuhan.
The confidential report “China: Origins of COVID-19 Outbreak Remain Unknown”, said that it was unlikely that this was created as a biological weapon and may have been created and released into the open due to negligence and outdated laboratory practices.
Even the US Embassy in Beijing had warned of shoddy methods deployed by the lab.
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“We have no credible evidence to indicate SARS-Cov-2 was released intentionally or was created as a biological weapon,” the DIA report read.
The report also mentioned that it may take many years to trace the actual origin of the virus.
Initial Chinese reports indicated that it originated in the infamous Hunan sea food market. However, 33 percent of the original 41 cases did not even have direct exposure to the market.
The report also pointed out that it was natural for the Wuhan lab to conduct experiments with the virus as even the USAID has funded this lab to test dangerous viruses and their biological features.
The report does appear to be giving a clean chit to the Chinese government. However, the veracity of the report cannot be verified.
President Trump has warned that China will pay for this misadventure and called on the agencies to investigate the ‘Wuhan virus’.
The US has lost over 55,000 lives due to this virus.