It is the opinion of Committee Minority Staff, based on the preponderance of available
information; the documented efforts to obfuscate, hide, and destroy evidence; and the lack of
physical evidence to the contrary; that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan
Institute of Virology laboratory sometime prior to September 12, 2019. The virus, which may
be natural in origin or the result of genetic manipulation, was likely collected in the identified
cave in Yunnan province, PRC, sometime between 2012 and 2015. Its release was due to poor
lab safety standards and practices, exacerbated by dangerous gain-of-function research being
conducted at inadequate biosafety levels, including BSL-2. The virus was then spread
throughout central Wuhan, likely via the Wuhan Metro, in the weeks prior to the Military
World Games. Those games became an international vector, spreading the virus to multiple continents around the world.