US intel on Covid origin inconclusive: Reports
WASHINGTON: A classified US intelligence report delivered to the White House on Tuesday was inconclusive on the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, in part due to a lack of information from China, according to media reports in the US.
The assessment, which was ordered by President Joe Biden 90 days ago, was unable to definitively conclude whether the virus that first emerged in central China had jumped to humans via animals or escaped a highly secure research facility in Wuhan, two US officials familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
They said parts of the report could be declassified in the coming days.
The debate over the origin of the virus that has killed more than 4mn people and paralysed economies worldwide has become increasingly contentious. When Biden assigned the investigation, he said US intelligence agencies were split over the “two likely scenarios” - animals or lab.
Former president Donald Trump and his aides had helped fuel the lab-leak theory amid intense criticism over their administration’s handling of the world’s biggest outbreak, pointing the finger at Beijing, which strongly denies the hypothesis.
Despite Biden’s directive that the intelligence community “redouble their efforts” to untangle the origin debate, the 90-day review brought them no closer to consensus, the officials told the Post.
Part of the problem is a lack of detailed information from China, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“If China’s not going to give access to certain data sets, you’re never really going to know,” an official told the Journal on condition of anonymity since the report is not public.
Vaccine efficacy down with rise of Delta variant
The effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines among front-line workers declined to 66% after the Delta variant became dominant, compared to 91% before it arose, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The vaccines are still protective, the CDC said, and the finding must be interpreted with caution, as vaccine effectiveness might wane over time and the estimates of efficacy were imprecise.
The study tracked more than 4,000 health workers, first responders, and other front-line personnel in eight US locations across six states from December 2020 to August 2021. They were tested weekly for infection, and about 83% were vaccinated. About two-thirds of those vaccinated had received the PfizerBioNTech shot, 2% received Johnson & Johnson’s, and the rest received the Moderna one.