US COVID origins report: researchers pleased with scientific approach

When agents from the FBI and CIA flew to New Orleans, Louisiana, last month to talk to virologist Robert Garry about the origins of COVID-19, he was relieved by the depth of their scientific background. These folks were really knowledgeable, had PhDs in molecular biology, they had read all of the papers in detail, he says.

The visit was part of the 90-day US intelligence-community investigation into where the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 came from, ordered by US President Joe Biden on 26 May. Like many researchers, Garry, at Tulane University, didn t know what tack the confidential investigation would take, and felt that a scientific approach was essential. The agents spoke to him about studies, including his own, on coronavirus evolution.

Biden received the investigation s classified report this week, on 24 August, and an unclassified version was made public today. The topline result is that the investigation was inconclusive. Intelligence agencies were divided on whether the pandemic most likely began because of a laboratory accident, or because of human contact with an infected animal. The only strong conclusion is that the coronavirus was not developed as a biological weapon; most agencies thought, with low confidence, that it was unlikely to have been genetically engineered. In a press statement, the intelligence community writes that it aims to issue more details on its investigation in the near future.

via www.nature.com

Ah, “The only strong conclusion is that the coronavirus was not developed as a biological weapon; most agencies thought, with low confidence, that it was unlikely to have been genetically engineered.” With low confidence? That sounds like “not all that sure.” Which sounds like, maybe the virus *was* engineered. Well, well. I also have third-hand reports, which still seem pretty reliable to me given those passing the information along, that plenty of card-carrying virologists who work at NIH think that *of course* the virus was engineered, that it is *obvious* that it was engineered. They refer to it in private as a “weapon.” I find this troubling. Why don’t they speak up. “It’s complicated,” I’ve indirectly heard. But it may have something to do with the nine kinds of hell that come crashing down on anybody, even little old me, who dares to suggest anything other than the green alligators and long necked geese theory of the Wuhan virus’s origins. “With low confidence” indeed. And it’s only *most agencies*, and those have only low confidence, who thought the virus is *unlikely* to have been engineered. So *some agencies* do think the virus *was* engineered? That’s significant. What was their or its level of confidence? I bet it was the DIA, arguably the least politicized intel agency, that thought the virus was engineered, but I’m speculating.