Biden calls for intelligence report on origins of Covid-19

The President tells US agencies to report back within 90 days on whether Covid-19 first emerged in China from an animal or a lab.

Joe Biden has ordered a US intelligence inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, following renewed scrutiny on the possibility that the outbreak of the virus might have started with a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China.

President Biden ordered a US intelligence inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, following renewed scrutiny on the possibility that the outbreak of the virus might have started with a laboratory leak in China.

The White House has come under pressure to carry out its own investigation after China told the World Health Organisation that it considered Beijing’s part of the investigation complete, calling for efforts to trace the virus’s origins to shift into other countries.

Mr. Biden, who wants a report within 90 days, said that U.S. intelligence has focused on two scenarios — whether the coronavirus came from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident. He said that there is a split among officials in the American intelligence community, or IC, on how the virus might have emerged.

Sharri Markson. Picture: Adam Yip

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“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,” Mr Biden said in a statement Wednesday, noting he received the initial report earlier this month.

The lab leak theory has angered China, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Wednesday hitting out and accusing Washington of “spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation.” Nevertheless, the idea is gaining increasing traction in the United States, where it was initially fueled by Donald Trump and his aides and dismissed by many as a political talking point.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week on a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.

The first officially documented case of a Covid-19 infection was in early December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, so the timing of the intelligence about the sick researchers, if fully corroborated by the new investigation, is deemed by current and former U.S. officials to be very significant.

“I have now asked the Intelligence Community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days,” Mr. Biden said. “As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China.” A World Health Organisation-led team of scientists visited China earlier this year to explore the origin of the virus and afterward called a lab accident “extremely unlikely.”

Still, with the other origins hypothesis — that the virus spread from animals to humans — undocumented, some scientists, some governments and the head of the WHO have urged further investigation into the possibility of a lab accident.

China told an annual gathering of the WHO’s decision-making body Tuesday that it considered the investigation in its country to be complete, arguing attention should now turn to other countries.

Xavier Becerra, the US secretary of Health and Human Services, pressed the WHO to oversee a second round of studies under rules that “give international experts the independence to fully assess the origins of the virus.” He didn’t specifically mention a lab.

During its visit to China earlier this year, the WHO team was largely confined to reviewing research conducted by Chinese scientists, and some members expressed frustration that they weren’t given full access to the data Chinese counterparts used to conclude there was little evidence of Covid-19 in China before the first confirmed cases in early December 2019.

In March, the WHO-led team recommended another, second phase of research, but that work has yet to begin.

Mr. Biden said Wednesday, “The United States will also keep working with like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence.”

The White House declined to provide additional information Wednesday, including whether it would take action if China doesn’t participate in an inquiry.

The Wall Street Journal