U.S. intelligence agencies are trawling through a “treasure trove” of genetic data said to be obtained from the biological research laboratory in Wuhan, China, that some have pointed to as a possible source of the COVID-19 outbreak, CNN reports. It’s unclear how the alleged data was obtained, given Beijing’s refusal to share data from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but CNN’s sources suggested the Chinese may have been hacked. The operation is purported to be part of a 90-day intelligence push mandated by President Joe Biden to uncover the origins of the pandemic, with theories that include the virus crossing over from an animal species or via a lab leak. CNN said there was one major problem facing the intelligence agencies as they comb through what is said to be the 22,000 samples in question: a shortage of security-cleared specialists who both understand the science and speak Mandarin.
