U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he has directed the U.S. intelligence community to redouble their efforts in investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and report back to him in 90 days.
The announcement comes after a U.S. intelligence report found several researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized - a new detail that fueled fresh public pressure on Biden to delve deeper into the origin of the virus.
"As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China. I have also asked that this effort include work by our National Labs and other agencies of our government to augment the Intelligence Community's efforts. And I have asked the Intelligence Community to keep Congress fully apprised of its work," Biden said in a statement.
"The failure to get our inspectors on the ground in those early months will always hamper any investigation into the origin of COVID-19," CNN cited Biden as saying.
Biden said in the statement that in March he directed his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to task the intelligence community with preparing a report on the most up-to-date analysis of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, including whether the virus emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident. Biden said he received that report earlier this month and asked for additional follow-up.
"As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has 'coalesced around two likely scenarios' but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question. Here is their current position: 'while two elements in the IC leans toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter - each with low or moderate confidence - the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other,' Biden said in the statement.
Biden said the U.S. would work with allies to continue to press China "to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence."
The President has directed agencies and National Labs to work closely with the intelligence community on its 90-day deep dive, even as they continue to push for a more fulsome WHO investigation.
