COVID's origin remains inconclusive, according to an unclassified Office of Director of National Intelligence report publicly released Friday.
Driving the news: “[T]he IC remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19."
What they're saying: COVID was "probably" not developed as a biological weapon or genetically engineered, but the two dominant theories — that it came from a lab leak or was naturally transmitted from an animal — remain plausible, according to the report.
- Chinese government officials did not know of the virus before its initial outbreak, the report said.
- "The IC judges they will be unable to provide a more definitive explanation ... unless new information allows them to determine the specific pathway for initial natural contact with an animal or to determine that a laboratory in Wuhan was handling SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor virus before COVID-19 emerged."