Biden Says He Told Intel Agencies to ‘Redouble’ Efforts to Investigate Wuhan Lab

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President Joe Biden said Wednesday he was asking the intelligence community to “redouble” efforts to investigate the origins of Covid-19.

In a statement, Biden said the intelligence community had “coalesced around two likely scenarios” related to the conception of the virus. One scenario involves the idea that it emerged through unintentional human contact with an infected animal, while the second involves an accidental leak from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. Quoting from a report he received from intelligence officials last month, Biden said, “While two elements in the IC leans toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter — each with low or moderate confidence — the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.

“I have now asked the intelligence community 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” Biden said. He additionally faulted China for refusing to let inspectors “on the ground” in the early months of the pandemic, and said he asked the intelligence community to come up with “specific questions for China.”

The birth of Covid-19 became an issue of renewed focus this month after an intelligence community report found that three researchers at the lab were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with the virus in November 2019, before the first cases of the virus were reported, and months before China began cooperating with global health officials.