Pres. Biden orders CIA to investigate origins of COVID-19 virus

As disputes about the origins of the COVID-19 virus continue, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered further investigation into the matter based on the judgment that U.S. intelligence authorities have diverging opinions.

President Biden announced in a statement on Wednesday that he ordered in March intelligence agencies, including the CIA, to investigate whether the COVID-19 virus started from contacts between humans and animals outside a lab or was accidentally leaked from a lab.

The president explained that based on the recent briefings, he believed that the CIA and other intelligence agencies had not yet reached a consensus on the matter. He said two agencies lean toward the animal origination theory, while one agency puts more weight on the lab leakage theory – both with only a low or intermediate level of reliability. The president asked them to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion and report back to him in 90 days.

It is unusual for the U.S. to reveal the unconcluded activity of its intelligence agencies. Bloomberg News reported that the U.S. intended to deliver a message that it is not excluding the possibility of the virus leaked from a lab in China. “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,” Biden put pressure on China in the statement.

China opposed the statement and criticized the U.S. for politicizing the origin of the COVID-19 virus. “Since the outbreak of COVID-19 last year, some political forces have been fixated on political manipulation and blame game, while ignoring their people's urgent need to fight the pandemic,” the Chinese embassy in the U.S. made a statement on its website on Thursday without mentioning President Biden’s statement.

Even though the World Health Organization published a report that the likelihood of the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China is low, disputes about the origins of the virus are expanding as The Wall Street Journal reported that the lab could in fact be one.


jyr0101@donga.com