Two foreign countries are targeting America's coronavirus vaccine supply chain, Chief William Evanina from the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) revealed in an interview Tuesday.
He shared that Russia and China are engaging in cyber warfare against the United States--he is convinced that the country's adversaries are trying to get a (sic) "peak" at the systems through intelligence gathering operations, One America News Network reported. The government agencies and private firms were the main victims of a massive data breach following the SolarWinds hack.
"We've had too many wake up calls and I think right now, as we put into context our counterintelligence strategy in America, supply chain management is the second pillar," He discussed. "I think we have to find the right mechanism, the right modality, where we can have a real life public and private partnership that's beyond what we see now," Evanina further explained.
The Chinese and Russian embassies did not immediately respond to Evanina's claim. However, they have denied the accusations of the U.S. that the hackers who had tried to steal data from vaccine manufacturers were linked to both of the governments.
China is the same country which had been hiding the total amount of positive cases they had in Wuhan. A recent study from the Wuhan University revealed that the Asian country actually had more COVID-19 cases than the communist government reported, even three times more than what was said.
The country also previously prohibited a 10-man team from the World Health Organization (WHO) to conduct an investigation as to where COVID-19 really originated. Recent reports indicated that the team is already there, but the government barred two of them from entering after failing the coronavirus antibody test.
Fighting the pandemic
As infections and deaths due to COVID-19 continue to rise, most of the U.S. states are speeding up their inoculations. An average of 3,200 lives nationwide are claimed each day over the past week, Reuters reported.
As of writing, an estimate of 9 million Americans have already received the first of the two doses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Multiple options for vaccines are also allocated--Pfizer, Moderna, and BioNTech were rolled out throughout the whole nation.
Evanina shared that the National Counterintelligence and Security Center is closely working with the U.S. Army and the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that the transportation of these vaccines would be safe the moment it leaves the manufacturing site up until the end-user inoculation.
When President Trump declared the COVID-19 pandemic as National Emergency, which unlocked billions of dollars to fight the virus, he vowed to assure that all Americans will have more chances in life and be free from masks.
Even though the United States is still at the top position with the most number of cases of COVID-19 around the world, the current administration has already started with the vaccination that would ensure the slow down or halt the spread of the virus.
