• Health Wuhan Market Genetic Data Links Raccoon Dogs to Origin of Pandemic

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, gave his approval on Monday to the law to declassify the documents on the origin of covid that the US Congress approved at the beginning of the month.

"I share the objective of Congress to publish as much information as possible about the origin of COVID-19," the president said in a statement in which he announced his signing of the law, the last step remaining for its enactment.

The regulation asks the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, to declassify information regarding the origin of covid-19, pointing out that there is reason to believe that the covid-19 pandemic originated in a laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (China), a theory for which, so far, there is no evidence.

In his message, Biden stressed that his administration will continue to analyze all information regarding the possible origins of the disease, "including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

The Democrat clarified that he will allow the declassification of all information "that is possible" without jeopardizing national security.

FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed in late February his belief that the pandemic was "probably" caused by a leak in a Wuhan lab, even though many scientists believe the most plausible theory is that the virus jumped from animals to humans.

However, two US intelligence agencies - one from the Department of Energy and the other from the FBI - point to the laboratory theory, although with "low" or "moderate" confidence, according to the US network NPR, while four agencies opt for the theory of natural origin.

On Saturday, the World Health Organization (WHO) expert group investigating the origin of the coronavirus raised the possibility that the raccoon dog, an animal sold in the Wuhan market where the pandemic began, was key in the transmission of the pathogen to humans.

Newly revealed data from laboratory samples taken at the market indicate a strong presence of DNA from this animal, and photos from the Huanan market in Wuhan (central China) prove that its meat or derived products were sold in stalls, the organization said in a statement.

The international organization emphasized on Friday, when this new advance in the investigations into the mysterious origin of covid-19 was revealed, that the different hypotheses about the origin of the coronavirus, which has caused almost 7 million deaths, 5,000 of these only the last week, are still standing.

Among these hypotheses would be, in addition to the transmission from one or more animals to humans, the one that poses a contagion through the food chain, or the one that shuffles that could accidentally leave a laboratory where it was preserved for study.

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  • Coronavirus
  • Wuhan
  • China
  • Covid 19