Security guards guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus visit the institute in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province, on February 3, 2021.
Hector Retamal | AFP | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he had ordered a closer scrutiny of the intelligence community, which he said were two equally plausible scenarios for the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Biden announced earlier this year that he hired the intelligence community to “prepare a report on their most recent analysis of the origins of Covid-19, including whether it was from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident . ” “”
“To date, the US intelligence community has partnered around two likely scenarios, but has not reached a definitive conclusion on the issue,” Biden said in a statement.
“Here is their current position: ‘While two elements in the IC tend toward the former and one toward the latter – each with low or moderate confidence – most elements do not believe that there is enough information to make one more likely than that others, “said the President.
Biden issued the new guidelines as the causes of the still officially unknown coronavirus pandemic are increasingly being investigated.
The hypothesis that the virus might have escaped a lab, although originally dismissed by some as a conspiracy theory, has gained more mainstream traction in recent months.
The director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on the Senate Testimony last week that an origin of a laboratory leak was “certain” “a possibility”.
White House officials told reporters Tuesday that China had not been “completely transparent” in its global investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and that a full investigation was needed to determine whether the virus is affecting nearly 3.5 million people killed, came from nature or a laboratory.
“We have to get to the bottom of whatever the answer,” Andy Slavitt, Senior Covid-19 Advisor to the White House, told reporters at a Covid briefing Tuesday. “We need a completely transparent process from China, we need that [World Health Organization] to help on this matter, and we don’t feel like we have it now. “
The World Health Organization said in March it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus was transmitted to humans through an accidental laboratory leak. However, this report has been heavily criticized by scientists who said WHO briefly cut the chance of a laboratory accident compared to a natural-origin scenario.
“The report lacks critical data, information and access. It presents a partial and incomplete picture,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at the time when asked about the WHO’s stance on Covid’s origins.
The office of the director of the National Intelligence Service, who runs the country’s 18 intelligence agencies, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, did not immediately respond to CNBC.
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—- CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger and Amanda Macias contributed to this story.
