Monthly Archives: June 2023

The Biden administration has missed theJune 18 statutory deadlinefor delivering U.S. intelligence information on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic to Congress. Despite the missed deadline, the information about its origins is becoming clearer. This is due, in large part, to vigorous congressional oversight and the outstanding work of independent journalists in search of the truth.

In March, President Joe Biden signed into law Sen. Josh Hawleys, R-Mo., COVID-19 Origins Act. The act requires the administration to declassify any and all information relating to the outbreakand to ChinasWuhan Institute of Virology within 90 days of the laws passage.

Regardless of the administrations stalling, here are the key questions about the outbreaks origins and the mounting evidence that can answer them.

First, Were Chinese Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Among the First Persons Infected by COVID-19?

Credit the excellent work of independent journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag, who, with the help of multiple government sources,identified three patients zero: Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhuall Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Hu was a close associate of Shi Zhengli, the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the institute (also known as the Bat Lady), and worked in gain-of-function research on coronavirusesthe research designed to increase a pathogens lethality and transmissibility.

If the institutes researchers were the first, or among the first, infected with COVID-19, that fact would lend further credence to the argument that the deadly pandemic originated from a Chinese laboratory leak.

Shellenberger and his colleagues also reinforce the conclusion of the most detailed examination of the topic yet: the exhaustive January 2023 Senate Republicanstaff reportcompiled by Dr. Robert Kadlec and a multidisciplinary team of scientists and analysts. After conducting 18 months of painstaking research into the topic, they concluded: The preponderance of circumstantial evidence supports an unintentional research-related incident.

WhileChinese Communist officialsand several prominent Western virologists funded by the National Institutes of Health insisted that COVID-19 had a natural origin, other American officials expressed concerns about Chinas lab safety well before the outbreak.

As noted in theSenate report, Shi herself admitted in an interview in Science (published in July 2020) that some of the institutes coronavirus research was being conducted under substandard safety conditions.

Again, according to the Senate report:

At least until the COVID-19 pandemic, it is apparent that researchers at the WIV were working with SARS-related coronaviruses in inappropriate biosafety levels. One goal of this research was to identify and evaluate SARS-related viruses that were more capable of infecting human cells. In the two years leading up to the pandemic, publications by and interviews with WIVs researchers attest to increasingly sophisticated coronavirus experiments using humanized mice, bats, and palm civets to achieve this goal.

In other words, gain of function research.

Second, When Did the First COVID-19 Outbreaks Occur?

The timing of the first COVID-19 infections is a crucial piece of the origins puzzle. Communist Chinas regime insists that Dec. 8, 2019, was the date of the outbreak, and Shi publicly declared that there was no COVID-19 infection among the staff at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Nonetheless, the U.S. Consulate in Wuhan reported during the fall of 2019 that residents in Wuhan were suffering from a particularly bad flu season, visiting athletes were getting sick, and there was a spike in hospital admissions of patients with COVID-19-like symptoms.

Based on their analysis of the epidemiological data, the authors of the Senate staff report concluded that COVID-19 infections emerged in China between early October and mid-November of 2019, a discovery that comports with the finding of Shellenberger and his colleagues that scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had developed the COVID-19-like illness in November 2019.

The Senate report concludes:

Based on Chinese presentations, there is no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 circulation in people prior to December 2019. These findings are inconsistent with COVID-19 outbreak modeling, reports from U.S. Consulate officials in Wuhan, leaked PRC [Peoples Republic of China] government documents identifying cases in November 2019, and other media reports of COVID-19 cases prior to December 2019.

Third, How Did the Outbreak Happen, and How Was the Virus Transmitted?

The assumption underlying a natural (zoonotic) origin for the outbreak is that the bat coronavirus probably jumped to a susceptible animalan intermediate host to a human. Human infection, proponents of zoonotic origin posited, resulted from contact with some animal species in the Huanan Seafood Market in densely populated Wuhan. A curious fact, however, is thatonly 28%of the earliest known cases had direct exposure to the Huanan market.

Over the past three years, certain candidates for the intermediate host have been suggested, such as pangolins andraccoon dogs, but thus far, none have been identified. Given the party line that the pandemic had a natural origin, this failure to identify an intermediate host is unexpected. Historically, Chinas public health authorities demonstrated a rapid capacity to identify the zoonotic origins of previous viral infections.

But as the authors of the Senate staff report observe:

To date, China has not acknowledged the infection or positive serological sample(s) of any susceptible animal prior to the recognized outbreak. Genetic analysis of published SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the early outbreak does not show evidence of genetic adaptation reflecting passage through a susceptible animal species such as a palm civet raccoon dog or mink. To this end, no intermediate host has been identified.

They further note, The failure to find any animal infected with a SARS-CoV-2 variant or closely related virus that lacks mutations found in human SARS-CoV-2 viral isolates is a significant evidentiary gap in the natural zoonotic hypothesis.

A Deeper Probe

This evidence is further bolstered by analysts with the Department of Energy and the FBI. Theirassessments conclude, with different degrees of confidence, that the deadly virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.

In April of 2020,State Department personnelhad determined that the likely origin of COVID-19 was the Wuhan lab and that research staff had gotten sick and one sick employee disappeared.

Shellenberger and his colleagues note, It is unclear who in the U.S. government had access to the intelligence about the sick WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the public.

Many of these answers should come from the Biden administration, and Congress should hold the administration responsible to deliverin fullall of the intelligence information that the COVID-19 Origins Act requires to be released.

Congressional investigators must continue to follow up on the stellar work of these independent journalists, secure sworn testimony from the anonymous federal officials, collect the hard evidence, and finally get to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19.

The deadly pandemic has thus far killed more than 1.1 million Americans and nearly7 millionpersons worldwide. Determining the true origins of COVID-19 is non-negotiable. It is a crucial piece of information we need to avoid a replay of this tragedy, to avoid repetition of our mistakes in responding to it, and to ensure that our country is better prepared to respond to the next global pandemic.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

Continued here:

Biden Administration Fails to Share Intel on COVID-19 Origins, but Independent Evidence Is Piling Up - Heritage.org

In early 2021, recommendations about COVID vaccines were pretty straightforward get two doses, as soon as you are eligible. A year later, we knew getting a third dose was important for protection against the new Omicron variant.

Today, though, the situation is far more complex new updated vaccines are available, the majority of Australians have likely been infected at least once with an Omicron strain, and waves of infection continue to occur.

So how should you manage and time your booster shots?

Read more: Over half of eligible aged care residents are yet to receive their COVID booster. And winter is coming

Vaccines work by training our bodys immune system to react harder, faster, stronger and better when we get infected by a pathogenic virus or bacteria.

Unfortunately, this protective benefit is not permanent and immunity tends to wane over time. The extent to which vaccine protection wanes is a function of two main factors.

First, your immune system (in the form of antibodies, memory B cells and T cells) is not infinite, and the levels of vaccine-induced immune responses will gradually decline over time. Second, pathogens circulating in the community can mutate, which enables escape from being recognised by the immune system. The more the virus escapes, the less protection the vaccine can give you.

Read more: Why does my back get so sore when I'm sick? The connection between immunity and pain

Not all pathogens have the same ability to create or tolerate mutations. For viruses that change little (such as measles), your childhood vaccines remain highly protective and you might never need a booster.

In contrast, some viruses can rapidly and dramatically change (looking at you, influenza), quickly rendering our vaccines outdated and making updates necessary.

Read more: I need a flu shot and a COVID booster. Can I get them at the same time?

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, has demonstrated an ability to rapidly change since emerging in 2019. Although the early pandemic in Australia featured vaccine supply constraints, we now lucky to have many different vaccine options.

Recommendations currently favour updated mRNA bivalent boosters from Pfizer or Moderna, each containing equal parts of the original virus strain and an Omicron strain.

But the virus continues to change (currently XBB strains are dominant, and further updates to the composition of the vaccine are to be expected in the future (most likely to target XBB.1.5).

Are you sure? Queuing for a PCR test seems like a fever dream from the past. Now, many of the RATs stacked in our cupboards are rapidly expiring. Influenza and RSV are back with gusto (and cause similar symptoms).

If you did have confirmed COVID, our research shows the majority of people mount a strong immune response following each infection.

This means that once you recover, your immunity has been updated to reflect the virus variant that caused your infection and you will have higher protective antibody levels in your blood.

There are a couple of things to consider here.

Firstly, there is no such thing as too much immunity. Beyond the regular side-effects of a vaccine, there are no known additional risks to being re-vaccinated soon after an infection.

On the other hand, getting vaccinated quickly after recovery will not do much to further boost your immunity. Current recommendations are to wait six months after infection or your last dose before seeking another booster.

This allows your immune system time to rest, so that it can be effectively re-activated by vaccination. If youd prefer to minimise your risk of COVID, and you dont know what caused a recent illness, topping up your immunity via a booster may be the way to go.

The short answer is, we need more information and time to figure that out.

Our communities now have high immunity (from both vaccines and infections), so balancing the risks and rewards of COVID boosters is increasingly complex.

Ultimately, your personal health care provider is best placed to offer specific advice. Generally however, those who are vaccinated (with three or more doses), younger (64 and under), and otherwise healthy have the least to gain.

For those who are older (especially over 65s) or who have health complications, regular COVID boosters are likely to be an important tool for staying healthy, especially over the winter season. While we still need more data, multiple studies suggest booster vaccines can reduce the risk of developing long COVID, providing another reason to keep up-to-date.

Unfortunately, COVID is among us and likely here for good. But like old mate influenza, we now have effective tools to blunt the impacts of COVID, and even better options will come through the pipeline to unlock further health improvements (like the transformative new vaccines for RSV).

For now, stay tuned to the latest advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) about additional vaccine boosters and rest assured scientists and public health officials are still working to better understand how best to maintain high levels of population immunity via regular immunisation.

Go here to see the original:

Do I need a booster vaccine if I recently had COVID? What if I'm not sure what I had? - The Conversation

Long gone are the days families would spend Saturdays at the shopping mall, lounging near the fountain with an Orange Julius or flitting from Thom McAn to Cavages to Waldenbooks.

Edie Lee creates a variety of paintings of artifacts and pop culture figures at Cool Ass Art inEastern Hills Mall.

Most of the stores shoppers remember visiting in malls arent there anymore. If they havent gone out of business, they have headed for greener pastures in strip malls or other non-enclosed locations.

Sure, malls still have their stalwarts such as Spencers Gifts, Hot Topic and Bath and Body Works. And Walden Galleria and Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls USA are in a league of their own.

But youll have as much of a chance of finding a psychic or a wrestling match or even a church in todays malls as you would a food court or a shoe store.

As online shopping slowed foot traffic to a crawl and Covid-19 put the nail in its coffin, the Boulevard, Eastern Hills and McKinley malls have had to get creative to fill a growing amount of vacant space and lure people in. Even the Walden Galleria is branching out into more of a shopping and entertainment mix.

Empty storefronts are the reason why malls are adapting. And it is still an uphill struggle. Around 44% of the space in the McKinley Mall remains vacant.

With fewer shoppers, malls have cut their hours. They have also had to be less strict about requiring shops to stay open during all mall hours which means you might be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of shops open on a Monday or outside of peak hours.

Things have been especially complicated as Boulevard Mall and Eastern Hills Mall wait in limbo to be transformed into outdoor, walkable town centers, and McKinley goes through another ownership change.

If you havent been to a mall in a while, you might not recognize it.

Spiritual adviser and artist Edie Lee organizes tarot cards on a table in her store, Cool Ass Art, in Eastern Hills Mall. We havent even advertised, and people are coming in, Lee says.

New ways to keep cash registers ringing

Nickel City Wrestling, owned by Steven Stroh Sr., held its practice at Dipson Theatre in Eastern Hills Mall on Thursday, June 8, 2023. This is

Im not looking for your traditional mall tenant, said Dalton Drake, events coordinator at Eastern Hills Mall. Im looking for a business that doesnt mind being in a mall and can work with any event we bring in.

In the absence of traditional mall traffic drawn by long-gone anchor stores such as Sears and AM&As, Drake works to stage events that bring in people who might stick around to visit other tenants afterward.

Roughly 30% of tenants at Eastern Hills have contract agreements to pay the mall a percentage of their sales, on top of their monthly rent, so higher foot traffic is in everyones best interest.

The immersive Beyond Van Gogh exhibit in the Eastern Hills Mall parking lot drew half a million visitors in 2021.

The immersive Beyond Van Gogh exhibit in 2021 drew a half million people. The annual Off-Broadway Farmers and Artisans Market, which started as a way to scoop up displaced Broadway Market vendors, regularly brings in more than 1,000 shoppers. And an animal adopt-a-thon brought in 1,400 people a day, leading to 500 adoptions and plenty of runoff traffic for tenants. Other events bring in numbers just as strong: car shows, festivals, carnivals and, soon, the Worlds Biggest Bounce House.

Tenants said they can rely on events to keep cash registers ringing and for nonprofit organizations donations flowing. But often, as was the case with such tenants as New Age shop Alchemy of Spirits, events sometimes bring new tenants.

I love to watch people go from a 6-foot table at an event to a 1,000-square-foot store and then keep building and taking off, Drake said.

Edie Lee has been serving as a spiritual adviser and selling art professionally since she was 14. At Eastern Hills Mall, she has a combination gallery space where she sells paintings ranging from $300 to $2,000 and a curtained reading corner where she reads clients tarot cards. She is part of a wave of psychics, mediums and Wiccans that have set up shop at area malls with their crystals, candles and New Age philosophy.

Edie Lee poses for a portrait beside David Bowie and disco ball paintings she made in her store, Cool Ass Art, on Wednesday, May 31, 2023.

Typically, Lee had made her living at home, doing commissioned pet portraits and selling at art fairs and craft shows on the weekends. At one such event, Drake coaxed her into taking on her own space in the mall. Just 20 days into her soft opening, she sold 14 paintings, covering her lease payment in just one sale.

We havent even advertised, and people are coming in. And in this area, they buy, Lee said, referring to the surrounding affluent demographics in Clarence and Williamsville.

Lee organizes the malls popular psychic fairs that bring in dozens of psychics and thousands of people for on-the-spot readings. She does paint nights, where groups paint while she takes them aside for one-on-one life readings; and shes in the process of setting up after-hours ghost hunting walks in the mall with paranormal investigator and star of Travel channels Ghost Adventurers Nick Groff.

Edie Lees store at Eastern Hills Mall offers paint nights and life-readings and she is in the process of setting up after-hours ghost hunting walks in the mall.

Not in the mood for a medium? How about a punch in the face?

At McKinley Mall, Schaffer MMA offers a variety of mixed martial arts and muay thai classes those that get athletes ready to beat each other senseless in cage fights.

McKinley Mall is also home to Red Dragon School of Martial Arts, a tamer, more traditional martial arts dojo.

Eastern Hills Mall boasts not one, but two professional wrestling companies. Nickel City Wrestling and Buffalo Wrestling Academy.

Owner/head trainer Steven Stroh Sr. jumps off ring rope while being guided by Brad Barringer during a Nickel City Wrestling practice on Thursday, June 8, 2023.

Nickel Citys wrestlers have been known to jog around the mall in character and one pair even crashed through the malls fountains during a sold-out match in the main concourse.

We were looking for a permanent home, and we found it at Eastern Hills, said Steve Stroh, Nickel Citys owner.

The company was formerly based in warehouse spaces in North Tonawanda and Niagara Falls.

Its affordable and its a more comfortable experience for fans, Stroh said.

In this February photo, Weldon Jones skates at the future location of Food Court Skatepark at the McKinley Mall.

Malls wide-open spaces make them a perfect fit for other types of athletes looking to practice their sports, too. McKinley Mall will soon host Food Court Skate Park a 16,000-square-foot, indoor skateboarding park designed by San Diego-based Ramp Carnies, the same company that builds courses for the X Games and pro skater Tony Hawk.

Sports Performance Park in the Eastern Hills Mall has a bricklike faade that looks like a baseball stadium. The interior is nearly as cavernous. At roughly 60,000 square feet, it boasts two baseball diamonds with AstroTurf, a dozen batting cages and six pitching mounds.

It started as a baseball and softball facility where athletes could practice their skills, and has now branched out into other sports, including pickleball. It also has chiropractic services, training schools and a crossfit gym on site, as well as a pro shop selling sports gear.

At roughly 60,000 square feet, Sports Performance Park in Eastern Hills Mall boasts two baseball diamonds, a dozen batting cages and six pitching mounds.

The fun and games dont stop there.

McKinley Mall has Bison City Cornhole, which hosts leagues and individual play of the game that involves tossing a bean bag through a hole in a wooden board.

Boulevard Mall has Buffalo Bridge Center, a nonprofit social club that hosts bridge card games sanctioned by the American Contract Bridge League. It also offers bridge lessons and supervised play.

Eastern Hills Mall has Bison Billiards, a lavish pool hall with 18 tables of varying styles.

Western New York Garden Railway Society couldnt have found a better way to showcase its members meticulous train displays than its glass-front spot at McKinley Mall. Even when the space is closed, a bright red button invites passersby to press it and activate the trains down the track.

Consumerism gives way to community and collectibles

The McKinley Mall, where shoppers can visit Tabby Town, a no-kill cat adoption shelter. Around 44% of the space at the mall remains vacant.

Nonprofit organizations have found a good fit in malls which put them closer to the communities they serve. Rather than hiding their message in an office park, they directly reach people who might be willing to donate time or money, or might need to use the services themselves.

Tabby Town at McKinley, a no-kill cat adoption shelter, brings its furry fosters up close and personal with those who might be able to provide them a forever home.

Most people have never heard of Sleep in Heavenly Peace a volunteer organization that builds and delivers beds to families who need them unless they have walked past their storefront at Eastern Hills.

The Hope Project of WNY looks like a home store, but its another nonprofit organization that lets those in need shop for housewares, clothing and other basic necessities for free. And Mats for a Mission weaves sleeping mats for the homeless using donated plastic bags.

Its been a wonderful opportunity for the community to check us all out while shopping at the mall, said Gail Potter, Mats for a Missions founder. Weve had so many people walk in to learn more about what we do because of it. Weve actually gained quite a few new volunteers because of that opportunity.

The Eastern Hills Mall contains multiple churches, including Epic Church, housed in a former Sears Auto Center, and Vessel Church, in a former Brooks Brothers store.

Malls have been accused of being shrines to consumerism now they have actual shrines. Epic Church, led by Free Methodist-ordained Pastor Mark Rouse, has made its home in the former Sears Auto Center at Eastern Hills. Vessel Church, with its rousing music and Jesus-centered message, fills a former Brooks Brothers store. The arrangement works: Churches bring their flocks, and the faithful hopefully flock to the malls stores and eateries after service.

Buffalonians love their thrift stores, and new Google search data pulled by EmpireStakes.com shows the Buffalo region is near the top of the list when it comes to the number of thrift stores it has and the frequency it searches for thrift stores.

Western New Yorkers love to go thrifting and antiquing. As a result, consignment and collectible shops at community malls are thriving. Niagara Emporium at Eastern Hills Mall has 75,000 square feet filled with everything from like-new furniture and decor to rare Hot Wheels cars, metal Genesee beer trays and taxidermied animals in the former Macys department store. Vaughn Collectibles Rising Sun, with its giant collection of Funko Pops and sports memorabilia, is about to nearly triple its space at Eastern Hills. And Whats in Your Attic? has enough business to support two locations, at Eastern Hills and McKinley malls.

The consignment model works even for nonconsignment stores. Some shops will often take on extra merchandise from outside vendors for a price when theyve got extra space, then take a portion of the profits when the merchandise sells.

Collectibles shops, which buy and sell things such as Pokmon cards, action figures and other collectibles, are thriving at community malls. Because they also do swift business online, they need affordable space to store and ship their goods. Hobby Spirit, which specializes in Japanese imports, also hosts Dungeons and Dragons tournaments; and Pallet Town Poke Shop at Boulevard Mall specializes in Pokmon trading cards and all things Pokmon.

People love that collectible merchandise, said Russell Fulton, Eastern Hills Mall manager.

Must-read local business coverage that exposes the trends, connects the dots and contextualizes the impact to Buffalo's economy.

View post:

Psychics, wrestlers and churches: How online shopping and Covid changed mall tenants - Buffalo News

By Sarah Roebuck Corrections1

NEW YORK CITY A report released by the Vera Institute of Justice shows that the number of people incarcerated remains on the rise.

The increase is primarily driven by significant growth in local jail populations, as efforts to reduce incarceration due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been reversed, according to the People in Jail and Prison in 2022report. The report analyzes incarceration trends in federal, stateand local facilities from 2019 to fall 2022, using the most recent available data.

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the total number of incarcerated individuals in the United States dropped from 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million by mid-year 2020. Local jail populations neared full recovery by mid-year 2021, while state and federal prison populations continued to decline, resulting in an overall incarcerated population of 1.76 million individuals. However, the latest data shows a rebound in both jail and prison populations, bringing the number of incarcerated individuals to 1.82 million.

Infall2022, the number of individuals in local jails was 24% higher than in mid-2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although jail populations have not yet reached 2019 levels, they did grow by 7% between mid-year 2021 and fall 2022.

On the other hand, state prison populations remain 8% lower than in mid-2020 and 15% lower than in 2019. They experienced only a slight increase of 1.3% between 2021 and 2022. The federal prison population is also 1.8% lower than in mid-2020 and 9% lower than in 2019. However, the recent trend shows relatively rapid growth, with a 3.3% increase between mid-year 2021 and fall 2022.

Continue reading here:

Report: Incarcerated populations up 4% post-COVID - CorrectionsOne

NEW YORKThe national average for gross revenue at ECP locations decreased last week, June 12 18, when compared with the previous week at a rate of -1 index point. That places gross revenue at a level 7 index points above where it was at this point in time (Week 25) when compared with last year (2022), 11 points above the same period in 2021, 10 points above 2020, and 17 points above 2019, according to Jobsons most recent Practice Performance Tracker.

All optical sales categories were down or flat last week when compared with the previous week, at rates of -1 index point for gross revenue, 0 index points for exams/refractions, 0 index points for frame units, -1 index point for lens pairs and 0 index points for contact lenses. When comparing last weeks optical sales with the same period last year, all categories were up besides one, ranging from the highest increase of 7 index points for gross revenue to the only decrease of -1 index point for contact lenses.

With all optical sales categories decreasing or remaining flat last week, only one of the categories still reached a level above an average week in 2019the index baseline assigned a value of 100 for this Optical Business Tracker. These ranged from a high of 116 index points for gross revenue to a low of 95 index points for contact lenses.

The other three categories reached 99 index points for exams/refractions, 98 index points for frame units and 98 index points for lens pairs. The other categories increased at rates of 5 index points for exams/refractions, 4 index points for frame units and 4 index points for lens pairs.

Jobson Optical Research selected 1,500 optical locations that have been operating and reporting their sales to its partners, GPN and ABB Analytics, since 2019. The index has been rebased to an average week in 2019. Going forward, this new index base will be used as an arbitrary benchmark and assigned a value of 100.

Click here to view the complete Jobson COVID-19 Performance Tracker

Read the original post:

The National Average for Gross Revenue at ECP Locations Decreased for the Week of June 12 18, Jobson's Latest ... - Vision Monday

The Intelligence Community Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity (EEOD) Office is responsible for the overall management of the ODNI EEO and Diversity Program, and provides IC-wide oversight and guidance in developing, implementing, and measuring progress in EEO, diversity, and inclusion.

The IC EEOD Office is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants based on merit and without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disability.

Applicants or employees who believe they have been discriminated against on the bases of race, color, religion, sex/gender (sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history) and/or reprisal for prior participation in the EEO process may raise their concerns to the IC EEOD Office.

Here is the original post:

ODNI Releases Report on the Potential Links Between the Wuhan ... - Office of the Director of National Intelligence

For three years, the U.S. government has been tied in knots over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, frustrated that Chinas hindrance of investigations and unwillingness to look critically at its own research have obscured what intelligence agencies can learn about whether the virus escaped from a lab.

Inquiries during the Trump and Biden administrations have yielded no definitive answers. The Energy Department and the F.B.I. favored the theory that a laboratory leak may have caused the pandemic. Five intelligence bodies considered theories of natural transmission that the coronavirus developed naturally and was transferred to humans at an animal market or other location more likely. But the C.I.A., the nations leading spy agency, would not make an assessment with even a low level of confidence.

This week, intelligence agencies are expected to release declassified material on what they have learned about Covids origins, a subject of intense interest and scrutiny among American lawmakers. But people briefed on the material say there is no smoking gun, no body of evidence that sways the intelligence community as a whole, or top C.I.A. analysts, that a lab leak was the more likely origin of the pandemic than natural transmission, or vice versa.

In fact, senior intelligence officials remain more convinced than ever that the agencies are not going to be able to collect a piece of evidence that solves the puzzle. Local and national authorities in China, U.S. officials say, destroyed some virus samples and used up others in research, all of which might have helped answer the questions over Covids origins. But those officials also caution against overstating the importance of the destroyed samples.

American intelligence officials also believe the Chinese government impeded the international communitys efforts to better understand the coronavirus in the early months of the outbreak and refused to gather other information that could have aided the investigation. In essence, there appears to be no secret to steal now.

Chinese officials, according to American intelligence assessments, are either convinced the virus was caused by natural transmission or do not want to investigate further out of fear that it could hurt their international reputation if, for example, evidence emerged that would illustrate sloppy practices or unsafe experiments at one of their labs. In 2021, China also sought to influence an investigation by the World Health Organization, angering the Biden administration.

The declassified material is unlikely to satisfy the debate over Covids origins. Some lawmakers and experts have argued that Chinas failure to open its labs up to outside investigators is evidence of a cover-up and suggests the coronavirus may have leaked from a lab accidentally.

A Government Accountability Office report released last week highlighted the Wuhan Institute of Virologys failure to provide information to the National Institutes of Health on research it had done on potentially dangerous pathogens. The report found that U.S. government funding had gone to the Wuhan lab, one of the labs that has been a focus of investigations into Covids origin. The lab had exceeded the safety threshold in some research, but the N.I.H. or its contractor had not properly monitored the work, the report said.

The report raised questions about the effectiveness of government restrictions designed to prevent scientists receiving U.S. funding from creating more deadly viruses, but it did not provide evidence that the Wuhan lab had made a more dangerous coronavirus, much less the pathogen that caused Covid.

Recent news reports have unearthed new information about researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology who became sick in 2019. The news reports suggested that one of them could be patient zero. The information about the sick workers was first discovered at the end of the Trump administration. By August 2022, however, intelligence analysts had dismissed the evidence, saying it was not relevant. Intelligence officials determined that the sick workers could not tell them anything about whether a lab leak or natural transmission was more likely. Intelligence agencies view the information about the cases neutrally, arguing that they do not buttress the case for the lab leak or for natural transmission, according to officials briefed on the intelligence.

U.S. officials also caution that their intelligence collection is imperfect. Before the pandemic, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention were not a priority collection target for American intelligence agencies. And China quickly locked down sources of information that might have been able to provide evidence.

Further complicating the picture is intelligence collected by U.S. agencies that illustrated a high level of tension between local officials in Wuhan and leaders in Beijing, particularly at the start of the pandemic. Local officials, trying to save their jobs and cover up the seriousness of the pandemic, obscured what was happening in Wuhan. Chinese officials have not acknowledged such tensions.

To protect their methods of gathering information, U.S. officials declined to discuss how they had collected intelligence on Chinese officials or their discussions about the Covid pandemic.

American officials say it is still possible that some new evidence comes to light, something like a trove of data a scientist has hidden away or a new source of information to help provide more insight. But as more time passes, that becomes less likely, especially as memories fade or sources move out of reach.

As an intelligence matter, officials said, the trail has run cold.

Read the original post:

U.S. Intelligence Agencies May Never Find Covid's Origins, Officials ... - The New York Times