Washington: Joe Biden has ordered the US intelligence agencies to intensify its efforts to study the origins of coronavirus, adding that it will continue to press for China to participate in a full investigation.
The president said he received a report earlier this month with the “most up-to-date analysis of the origins of Covid-19”, but had asked intelligence Community to redouble their efforts to identify a “definitive conclusion” on how the virus was first transmitted in humans.
“I have now asked the intelligence agencies 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. As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.
Biden’s request included asking the US intelligence community to explore the unlikely possibility that the origins of the virus trace to Chinese lab. After months of minimizing the possibility as a fringe theory, the Biden administration is responding both to domestic and geopolitical concerns about putting pressure on China to be transparent about the outbreak.
Note that the novel coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 and has since spread around the world, killing almost 3.5 million people and infecting almost 168 million, according to Johns Hopkins.