Biden-administration is redoubling the efforts to find out the origin of Coronavirus. In a statement released on 26th May 2021, President Biden urged the intelligence agencies across the board to intensify their investigations about possible origins of the fatal virus that has killed a whopping number of people so far. The President also urged China to cooperate during the investigation, as the country remains the centerpiece of this whole pandemic fiasco. As of now, the intelligence agencies have two major possibilities to explore. One would be human contact with an infected animal, a possibility that’s being more commonly discussed. The other one would be something which conspiracy theorists around the world have strongly advocated, which is that it was the result of a laboratory experiment gone wrong. Biden also revealed that currently the agencies are evenly split on a potential origin for the virus. There is ‘low or moderate confidence’ about either of the two, with no strong evidence available to give one side an edge over the other.
Biden’s statement about pressing China to “participate in a full transparent, evidence-based investigation” comes after the team tasked by World Health Organization to investigate the similar thing wasn’t granted adequate access to all the relevant pieces of data and evidence. While there hasn’t been any concrete response from China yet to this statement, it can be expected that the Chinese government will continue to have their reservations about granting the required access to facilitate a proper and productive investigation. Even though the lab theory didn’t gain all the traction at first, it has made a return to the fore after The Wall Street Journal reported that 3 students from Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized shortly before the outbreak of Coronavirus was confirmed by the government. However, the Chinese government continues to maintain its stance against reports that say the members of the lab had fallen ill. The spokesperson at China’s foreign ministry labeled these reports as “completely untrue”.
It remains to be seen how the investigation pans out, and whether the agencies can gather any conclusive evidence in the 90 days timeframe that is allotted to them by Biden.
