Former Director of National Intelligence and former US Representative John L. Ratcliffe spoke before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Tuesday, April 19, 2023. He believed lab leak was the origin of the pandemic.
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Here's the transcript.
RATCLIFFE: “Those are based on scientific information. And none of this is political. None of this is disputed. There is currently no environmental source identified for Covid-19. There is no intermediate host that has ever been identified. There is no reservoir species that has ever been identified. And Covid-19 was never known to exist in any animal or species before the pandemic began. Those are scientific facts that are not disputed, and there’s nothing political about that. That factored into the determinations that have been made. And what — I talked about before about this shift taking place. The things that I just related early on, the intelligence community was briefed by various scientists who said those answers will come. They referenced SARS-1 and MERS outbreaks and saying, look, it may take several months, even a year, sometimes even longer, to identify an intermediate host or — or species. We’re now three and a half years, and every day that passes makes it less likely that there’s anything that will ever tie this to nature. Whereas on the other side of the ledger, it’s overwhelming when you look at China’s actions and the circumstances surrounding what was going on from a biosafety standpoint at Wuhan, the massive number of Coronaviruses, the massive numbers of bats carrying Coronaviruses that were brought into Wuhan, all of that weighs heavily into making assessments at some confidence level that a lab leak was the origin for this pandemic.”
