Biden signs measure on declassifying intelligence on Covid-19 origins

The US President signed into law a measure that requires his administration to disclose all links between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology and the pandemic.

Wuhan Institute of Virology is believed by intelligence agencies to be where the Covid-19 virus originated.

US President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law a measure requiring his administration to declassify intelligence related to potential links between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Covid-19 pandemic, amid continued questions about the virus’s origins.

The Covid-19 Origin Act of 2023 gives the director of national intelligence 90 days to declassify the information about the lab’s research and activities related to the Covid-19 outbreak, including details about any researchers who fell ill in the fall of 2019. It allows the director to make redactions necessary to protect sources and methods.

“We need to get to the bottom of Covid-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics,” Mr Biden said in a statement. “My administration will continue to review all classified information relating to Covid-19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” The origins of the virus have been the subject of intense debate since the virus began circulating widely in Wuhan in early 2020, with a focus on a possible laboratory leak or animal origins.

President Biden says the information being made public will help people safeguard against future pandemics and create transparency with intelligence agencies.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the US Energy Department had concluded with “low confidence” that the Covid-19 pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2021 came to a similar conclusion, with “moderate confidence”, that the pandemic likely resulted from a lab leak. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission from animals to humans, and two are undecided.

The measure was sponsored by Republican senators Josh Hawley and Mike Braun and cleared the Senate by unanimous consent. The House voted 419 to 0 to approve the measure earlier this month.

In May 2021, Mr Biden told the intelligence community to step up its efforts to investigate the origins of Covid-19. The White House hadn’t previously said whether Mr. Biden would sign the bill, including earlier on Monday afternoon. “We’re certainly reviewing it, I just don’t have anything to share,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

A passenger wearing PPE arriving at Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.

Mr Braun applauded the president’s decision, saying that Mr. Biden “made the right choice” in deciding to sign the measure. “The American people deserve more than spin and ‘the narrative’ — they deserve the facts, and now more are on the way,” said Mr. Braun in a posting on social media.

China has disputed that the virus could have leaked from one of its labs, and Chinese officials have repeatedly suggested that the virus started outside the country.

The World Health Organisation said last week that Chinese authorities are withholding genetic evidence that could provide clues about the origins of the pandemic, pointing to data temporarily posted online by Chinese scientists, and then removed, that indicated the presence of wild animals at a Wuhan market.

China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention in late January briefly published genetic sequences done in 2020 that appear to show the presence of raccoon dogs and other animals at a Wuhan market that was the site of the first known Covid case cluster, WHO officials said on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal