The Joe Biden administration will release and transmit to Congress the information available to its intelligence agencies about the origin of the Covid, and specifically the possibility that the pandemic originated from an outbreak of the virus from a laboratory in the city of Wuhan. China, where the first cases of the disease were detected. Biden signed into law this Monday allowing this information to be disclosed.
Various US intelligence agencies have come to conflicting conclusions about the origin of the pandemic. A Department of Energy report was leaked a few weeks ago, indicating a “low level” of confidence in the thesis that it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In addition, FBI Director Chris Wray assured that his agency shares this thesis as the most likely. Other government bodies, on the other hand, believe the origin is natural and spread from the Wuhan market.
Faced with this heated controversy, Congress quickly passed legislation to force the Director of National Intelligence to release related information held by the government within 90 days. The so-called “Covid-19 Origin Act of 2023” was proposed by Republican Congressman from Missouri Josh Hawley, but it was supported by both Republicans and Democrats.
Biden signed the law into law this Monday, he said in a statement. “I share the goal of Congress to disclose as much information as possible about the origin of the disease,” he says in his note.
Biden recalls that shortly after taking office in 2021, he ordered the intelligence community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate the origin of the Covid. “This work is ongoing. We need to get to the bottom of the origins of Covid-19 to ensure we can better prevent future pandemics. My government will continue to review any classified information about the origins of COVID-19, including possible links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said.
In application of the law he signed, Biden promises that he will “release and share as much information as possible.” The law already allowed for the censorship of information about the sources and methods of investigations in order to protect their identities. Biden also mentions his “constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that could harm national security.”
The law passed by Congress is short. Orders to release all information related to possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Covid, including activities conducted by the institute “with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army,” research on coronavirus, or other related activities at the institute the Covid outbreak and information about researchers at the institute who fell ill in autumn 2019.
The law text requires the researcher’s name, symptoms, date of onset, their role within the Wuhan Institute of Virology to be identified in the case of these patients if they were involved in or exposed to research into the coronavirus. whether the investigator visited a hospital when ill and a description of any other actions taken by the investigator that might indicate that he or she was suffering from a serious illness at the time.
Former President Donald Trump often used the origin of the disease as a dialectical weapon in confrontation with China. Biden had previously avoided using this topic in the confrontation with China. The leak of the Energy Department’s findings and passage of the bill come at a time of rising tensions between the two superpowers. Biden signed the law on the same day Xi Jinping visited Vladimir Pitin in Moscow.