Experts assess CIA's claim that COVID came from a lab

There is a lot of indirect evidence of the laboratory origin of the CORONAVIRUS, Konstantin Chumakov, an adjunct professor at George Washington University and an adviser to the World HEALTH Organization (WHO), told RBC.

This is how he commented on the statement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that “a scientific origin for the covid-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin, based on available data.” The agency emphasized that the assessment was made “with a low level of confidence.”

Chumakov noted that he was unaware of direct evidence of the laboratory origin of COVID-19, but the version of its natural origin seemed "too far-fetched" to him. For example, the WHO adviser noted, "it is inexplicable why the Chinese covered their tracks by destroying the database."

According to the expert, many in the scientific community opposed the version about the virus originating in a Chinese laboratory, “fearing that this would lead to serious restrictions” in their work. In addition, the administration of former US President Joe Biden also did not want evidence of this theory, since “the American foundation gave grants to the Chinese to conduct research with such viruses,” Chumakov emphasized.

The coronavirus outbreak was first detected in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The city is home to the Institute of Virology, which was researching the SARS-CoV coronavirus before the pandemic began. The American non-profit EcoHealth Alliance collaborated with the institute. In 2014, it received funds from the US government-funded National Institutes of Health to study coronavirus in bats. Some of the money was transferred to the institute in Wuhan.

Chumakov believes that under Biden, the CIA investigation was limited to a “political order,” and now that Donald Trump has come to power in the United States , the political influence has weakened.

Virologist, Moscow State University professor, and DOCTOR of Biological Sciences Alexey Agranovsky emphasized in a conversation with RBC that the question of the origin of the coronavirus “has long since turned from scientific to political.” According to him, the CIA “is not the first time that it has published such reports that add nothing to solving the problem.”

Agranovsky noted that there are "indirect considerations" in favor of both versions - both the natural origin of covid as a result of mutations and recombinations of the precursor virus, and the artificial origin, as a result of a leak from the laboratory. According to the professor, the special services are "unable to add" anything on this issue.

The CIA noted that the new assessment of the origin of the virus was based on a more thorough study of the existing data. In CHINA, the agency's statement was called political manipulation without serious evidence, and called for "avoiding conspiracy theories." The question of the origin of the virus should be resolved not by politicians, but by researchers and experts "through careful and methodical scientific research," the Chinese embassy said.

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